


Predation

by hold_onto_your_heart



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Leia Princess of Alderaan - Claudia Gray
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Sith Leia, Amilyn Holdo Centric, Angst, Apprentice Legislature, F/F, Female-Centric, Force Sensitivity, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Rebel Amilyn Holdo, Sith Leia Organa, Slow Burn, amileia, background Bail Organa/Breha Organa, rebel intelligence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 17:34:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20139325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hold_onto_your_heart/pseuds/hold_onto_your_heart
Summary: Seven years BBY, Darth Vader presents his daughter, Lady Predis to the galaxy, seemingly out of nowhere, further oppressing their citizens. Amilyn Holdo watches their horrors from the safety of Gatalenta, until her need to restore peace to the galaxy becomes too great for anyone to ignore. But with a severe lack of empathy around her and an enamoured Sith on her trail, and uprising is not as easy as it seems.(Sith AU - what would happen to Holdo if Leia became Vader's daughter, instead of Bail's?)





	Predation

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: my only original (named) characters are Basi and Masodori. the apprentice legislature reception scene and winmey lenz subplot are heavily inspired by Claudia Grey's Leia: Princess of Alderaan novel, and the topic + outcomes of those debates, Amilyn's introductory speech in the first debate, the droid and Harp's words in the second debate, are Grey's words, not my own. Otherwise, anything that cannot be found on Wookieepedia is my own creation.
> 
> I've fudged the timelines a little, so there is another year or so before the events of a new hope, so amilyn, leia, and luke are 20 then, closer to 21 rather than 19. As an AU this mixes canon and legends ideas with my own. Hope you enjoy!

_ Ping! _

_ Ping! _

_ Ping! _

Amilyn Holdo rolls over her bed, sighing. A rare day off from her studying and creating floods her time with empty space, which the talons of the Galactic Empire use to fill her mind with their military-approved reports on the ‘improvements’ to neighbouring planets. Such propaganda has never made sense to Amilyn, a born and raised Gatalentan whose doctrine of peace allowed no real violence, let alone institutional violence. Ever since her reading of a HoloNet article on the sympathetic words of the dark hands of the Emperor on classifying Wookies as non-sentient beings, justifying their slavery, Amilyn could not support the Empire. The Council of Mothers’ laws against slavery has created a kernal of justice in her, one that only explodes further when she finally acknowledges her current news articles and sees the daily suffering of ordinary citizens from a news channel she does not remember subscribing to. Her peripheral astrology pop-ups cannot filter out the atrocities of the central government. Holo after holo pops up, filling her vision with amateur holovids of the famine on Wobani: a disaster the Empire only wishes to exacerbate. Its emaciated citizens fall at the feet of the officers who take glee in their plight, and the nausea in her stomach grows.

_ Ping! _

Amilyn blinks, spending a half second in momentary darkness free of such assault. She may wish to reject Gatalentan’s uniform culture (as reflected by a distinct lack of white clothing and scarlet cloaks - Gatalentan’s traditional dress - in her wardrobe), but here she is grateful for their daily meditation and skyfaring practices. When she drags her eyelids open, her mind is clear. She may be young now - at fifteen standard years she is acutely aware that she is among the first to come of age who was born into the Empire, despite her perplexion at how the adults around her could be complicit in its rise - yet her mind is decidedly set on altruism. Her datapad displays the first step in her positive intentions: acceptance into the Apprentice Legislature. Arguably the first step in gaining any power in the Imperial Senate, the Apprentice Legislature allows those aged sixteen to seventeen standard years a political assembly to discuss smaller matters and make ‘recommendations’ to the Senate. Not naive enough to believe this would lead to complete political reform, Amilyn knows she does not yet have the resources to start a rebellion from her own bedroom. To work from within, she had decided upon finishing her application, would be a good place to start, and even if she gets to help only one person it would be worth it. Positive intentions alone are not enough, or all of the galaxy would be like Gatalenta, she asserts as the Empire's shadow bleeds into her room.

_ Ping! Lady Predis to follow in her father’s footsteps? _

That cursed title is enough to make Amilyn groan, and Amilyn believes in dispersing better energy to the universe than that. Lady Predis -  _ Darth  _ Predis if the HoloNet writers were to admit that yes, she is following in her father’s Sith footsteps - is the shadow daughter of the nefarious right-hand of the Emperor, Darth Vader. She is never too far behind him, even after the bloody silencing of anyone in the Empire’s way. Amilyn is rarely rattled, a product of a lifetime of relative peace and meditation, yet even she is forced to admit that she wishes she will not chance on her in her own time on Coruscant, the political core of the Empire, during her own time in the Apprentice Legislature. The Empire can portray her as a keen student of her father and various Grand Moffs’ diplomacy all they like, Amilyn muses, she (and the rest of the galaxy) know that where Vader goes, carnage usually follows. 

Unappreciative of her time spent wallowing, Amilyn jumps up out of bed, getting dressed quickly. Aware that she cannot physically shorten the time between now and her Apprentice Legislature tenure, Amilyn leads a steady pace to her favourite skyfaring centre. As she gets lost in the silk scarves in all the colours of nature, she returns to her usual equilibrium, letting her ruminations tumble to the floor. Gatalentan spirituality strengthens her: each scarf she commands responds intimately to shed the violence she bears witness to. She dances high, high as the stars she loves to study and the dreams she chases while multiple suns paint liquid gold across the Gatalentan landscape.

* * *

The stars change, and several months later Coruscant more than lives up to its name, for Amilyn Holdo, it bursts its name in the favoured Senate District where the buildings are shining with the hope of the young. Gatalenta has little poverty, and as such when she first steps foot upon Coruscant, she is so enchanted by the urban sprawl and unfamiliar atmosphere that she limits her new dwelling to the glistening fountains and gardens of youth. It is not until later, when she adorns her new dormitory with her hand-grown crystals that an air of superiority filters in from just outside the door, and she remembers that poverty and grandeur are never mutually exclusive.

“Well we won’t have to worry about that, there is no way we will be expected to go that low. All of our senators have offices here.”

“Yes, you’re right of course, but it’s always best to be prepared for anything…”

The door in question slides open; two humans stand in the doorway, both about her own age, Amilyn estimates.

“Hi!” The presumed girl out of the two enthuses, ejecting a hand from her luggage in an attempted wave. “I’m Harp Allor, I think we’re neighbours for the Apprentice Legislature.” 

Amilyn’s delight for this new experience does not alter her almost permanent monotone - a scar of a life of considerable personal stability. “I’m Amilyn Holdo, of Gatalenta. Is that an oxygen tank you have with you? You’ve got to be careful with those, you never know how lack of air flow affects the energy in there.” 

Harp’s smile falters, while the smirk of the boy next to her only widens. “Oh, thanks… I guess. I won’t be needing it anyway; we shouldn’t need to stray far from the Senate District, and the air here is always filtered.” 

“At least you’re prepared. Rising with the sun is always a good idea.”

“Ri-ight.” Harp’s elongated syllables did not mask her acquaintance’s snort. “I better go unpack, see you around Amilyn.” The pair left, quickly as they came, while Amilyn pays their rudeness little heed in favour of consulting that night’s Coruscanti star maps to find the best position for her crystals.

After her swift settling in, Amilyn considers her hair. The Apprentice Legislature is due to open in an hour, and she needs something formal. Eventually she decides a simple braid will do, ignoring the blue chromomites sitting atop the basin in her refresher. Time marches on: she will have to indulge her chameleon spirit later.

Later comes with haste, and as the first fanfare for the Empire plays, she is grateful for the time she left to navigate the winding skyways of the complex that snake throughout the political heart of the Empire. 

“Welcome to the Apprentice Legislature…” A Grand Moff, Tarkin, Amilyn recognises from many HoloNet reports, commences with a speech on service and the potential of youth. Amilyn’s gaze does not waver from his crane form upon the dias, even when his hawk eyes scrutinise her for a second, yet she cannot yet discern if he will help or hinder in her dedication to aid. Previous reports had shown that the Grand Moffs were not always prone to violence in their bind to duty, although their ambiguity in their approach to governance is waning. Amilyn wishes she could believe his words, but his steel tone is cutting rather than caring. “And to better illustrate this Imperial dream, our young Lady Predis will say a few words.” 

Amilyn's isolated pod offers no protection from the sweeping hush silencing the gasps of the Apprentice Legislature; for all their finery none can compare to the rarity of seeing the Lady Predis in person. Those who do are often at the mercy of Lord Vader, and mercy was slashed from his lexicon years ago. 

“Thank you, Grand Moff,” Almost everyone leans in, as if they could cross the space between their pods and the cloaked Sith now rising from the shadows. Amilyn’s blood rushes faster, fascination lighting up her eyes, yet she outwardly remains stoic. She has no wish to join this crowd of cattle in their caging terror, even if Amilyn knows which of the two of them has stared Death in the face and laughed. “I look forward to meeting our next generation, and to consider all your ideas for the future of the Empire.” She may be short in stature, but her voice is elegant and her smile wicked. She does not appear to have much to say, however Amilyn drinks every word in the same: like she is parched in the desert. “After all, our Senate is only as strong as the sum of its parts.” 

Amilyn Holdo recognises this as her first veiled threat from the Empire.

* * *

The subsequent reception is not as comforting as Amilyn expects. While the high ledge hoists them far above much of the city, the murky depths below swallows the sinking sun. Even the Rodian musicians and their jaunty tunes can not raise the subdued mood, their notes falling flat whenever Lady Predis hovers by. Refusing to be intimidated, Amilyn draws a deep breath and heads directly for the snacks, newly-dyed blue and orange hair trailing the air behind her.

“Amilyn?” Behind her, Harp Allor appears: flushed, her face the only pink in this zeitgeist. “Isn’t this exciting?”

To Amilyn, Harp looks more nervous than excited: if Amilyn peers any closer into her wide eyes she would surely see the reflection of a Geonesian blaster aimed at her. “Oh yes,” she replies, her even voice likely painting her as insincere, “I look forward to working with everyone, and seeing which shadows are cast.” As if to punctuate, Amilyn takes a sip of her glowwine, feeling its warmth spread through her while Harp’s face executes an amusing cycle of confusion and consternation.

“And what do you mean by that, Ms. Holdo?” A voice of wine slips around Amilyn’s neck from behind; next to her steps the ever-cloaked Lady Predis. Harp’s increasingly pale face fades away as the Empire’s burgeoning agent fills Amilyn’s vision. The dramatic difference in their heights has Amilyn’s eyes slipping down to her, and underneath her formal belt Amilyn spies twin lightsaber handles. 

Bringing her gaze back to where Predis’ eyes are, or should be since a veil covers most of her face, Amilyn replies, voice calm as ever, “Well, the Imperial Senate is a large and complex process. Here in the Apprentice Legislature we are only one factor of many; our recommendation does not ensure the best outcome.”

Lady Predis smiles, and Amilyn imagines blood leisurely dripping from those sharp teeth. “Because some planets don’t know what is best for them, and could present a challenge?”

No fall from skyfaring scarves has truly prepared Amilyn for this. She knows that one wrong gesture can send her tumbling down, past the spongy floors and into the bowels of the city. Her sense of justice is screaming, but her innate self-preservation braces her to reply so she doesn’t end up like those she sees in the holovids every day. “Yes. It is a big galaxy after all.” 

Predis laughs; blades split the air as Amilyn smiles in return, taking another sip of her drink to avoid further missteps. She wishes she could say more, scream about the injustice of it, of them sharing deluxe food and drink mere hours after Predis herself had implied control over the Imperial Senate. Yet she respects death, with little intention to hasten its path to her. This interaction is nearness enough. “I like you.” This time when Predis' crimson lips stretch back, her grin is less diplomatic and more invoking of bloodied spots across the napkin Amilyn is holding. No amount of horror withholds Amilyn’s intrigue to this obvious vulture in their midst; she had never been any good at having appropriate hobbies.

“Good evening ladies,” A man inserting himself into their semi-circle snaps Amilyn’s concentration away from Lady Predis and her forbidden aura, and she remembers Harp is still present, as pale as the fine robes the newcomer is dressed in. “I must say it is an honour that you have chosen this Apprentice Legislature to debut officially on Coruscant, Lady Predis.” He offers his own politician smile.

“Thank you, Senator Lenz, it is good to see you here supporting the next generation of Chandrila.” She tilts her head towards Harp, who seems to only just be remembering she is a sentient being. Amilyn senses that Lady Predis’ favour does not extend to Harp. “And this,” she unfurls a gloved hand towards Amilyn herself, “Is Amilyn Holdo, of Gatalenta. Senator Lenz hails from Hanna City, I believe?” 

He shakes Amilyn’s hand, face betraying nothing. He must be used to seeing such high-ranking Imperial agents, Amilyn considers, to not be as swayed as his young charge. “It’s good to meet you Holdo. I see you’re already acquainted with Harp Allor?”

“Yes, we are neighbours…”

As Amilyn makes small talk with the Chandrilans, Lady Predis slips away to Amilyn’s peripheral vision, while her centre spot is replaced by two boys, clearly Amilyn’s peers in the Apprentice Legislature. One is the boy with the aristocratic accent and haughty words she heard earlier, when she was moving in: Harp introduces him as Chassellon Stevis of Coruscant. The other is a wiry boy, more suited to his height than Amilyn is to her own in her vibrant caftan, with an angular face that sparks Amilyn’s brain with familiarity. When he presents himself as Kier Domadi of Alderaan, the sparks ignite, and Amilyn realises why she recognises him. The Alderaanian pod in the Senate is opposite the Gatalentan one, and during the applause for Tarkin, she had noticed a distinct lack of movement on his part. Lady Predis’ subsequent arrival had banished all thoughts of his open rebellion from her mind. He, Amilyn decides, is a good place to start.

So when the party starts to wind down, Amilyn does not hesitate to corner Kier before he leaves. “We’re both going the same way. Do you want some company, as a friend of the people?” She stares almost uncomfortably into his dark eyes, imploring him to get the message. He stares back, eyes twinkling like the stars they can’t see behind them.

“Meet me by the slii garden in five minutes, to give me time to make my goodbyes.”

Amilyn nods, and strides in the opposite direction to Kier, having already bid goodnight to those she has mingled with. Before she can reach the relatively secluded square Kier identified, the penumbra in front of her shifts, and Lady Predis appears, blocking the corridor.

“We never got the chance to say goodnight earlier, Ms Holdo.” While her words are warm, her royal smirk chills Amilyn into sobriety.

“I apologise, Lady Predis, I admit I never saw you leave.” It is with sizeable effort Amilyn keeps her words brief to keep their connection short. She doesn’t want to become another lost number in the Empire’s casualties before her work even starts.

“It’s a shame that you’re not paying me as much attention as I do your pretty frame.” Lady Predis tilts her head: the only outward movement in their unyielding postures. Amilyn feels an involuntary twitch in her arm while she tries to convince herself she hasn't wasted her chance already. “I think we would make a great team.” She flourishes her words with a languid lick of her lips, and Amilyn forgets to breathe. Instead she plunges head-first into the intemperance of her body, living in her hot blood and rushing heart. In all her preparation for the Sith lady to be an official agent or looming murderess, she forgot that they are humans too, with Predis able to revel in playing games and Amilyn able to be affected by them, no matter how much she tries not to be. “Goodbye, Ms Holdo. I’m sure we’ll meet again soon.” 

And with that, she sweeps away, leaving Amilyn free to traverse the corridor again but still caged by the ringing in her ears.

* * *

“Holdo? You took so long I thought you left without me.” Kier Domadi whispers from behind a slii plant in lieu of a greeting. With her clashing of colours he must have seen her coming far before she saw him, but Amilyn appreciates the secrecy he is already undertaking. What she wishes to discuss should not be heard by a stray stormtrooper.

“Sorry - a Loth-wolf approached me. Honestly, I’ve not been sure how best to react.” His dark brow furrows as he considers her, still unsure how to perceive her. It is a look most familiar to her. “Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about earlier. In the Legislature opening, you didn’t clap.” 

His pause fills time and space twice over. “Shall we take a walk back to the dorms? We can talk on the way.” 

Amilyn nods, appreciative of the chance walking gives to clear her lungs. With each step her intoxication lifts; it seems that even Predis’ eerie words cannot keep Amilyn from being drunk on her presence for too long when she employs her calming routines. “I wanted to ask you why.”

His thick eyebrows lift. “Why I defied the Empire? I think anyone with any agency could tell you that. They are a shroud across the galaxy, and with Predis coming up they are only going to get worse.”

The Coruscant air is still, broken only by the tingling of Amilyn’s caftan bells, as if even the walls know of their exiled words and are waiting with bated breath. “I meant, why did you do it so openly? Was it a light to any ships coming in?”

Kier considers her for a moment, deep-set eyes cloudy as he unpicks her meaning. “No,” he announces finally, “I do not know anyone. Some whisper of rebellion, but they are soon silenced.”

Disappointment cascades through Amilyn, pooling as lead in her feet. She stops abruptly, face stormy. “So you were just being emblematic?” Her whispered monotone is almost cold. “A mirage of food is no help to those on Wobani, or anyone else suffering under a similar regime!”

“Neither is open violence!” Kier argues back. “Some worlds can be a sanctuary, and their representatives in the Senate can reframe policies to help, and restore power to the people.”

“So what, your plan is to move your K’lor’lsug in your white rooms until Vader and Predis come to wipe the board?” Amilyn can’t fathom Kier’s supposed inaction, not while reports of the Empire’s unnatural power are growing more frequent.

“Isn’t that what you do on Gatalenta too?”

His accusation silences both of them; now all Amilyn hears is her heart. Finally, she whispers, “At least on Gatalenta we don’t actively partake in inaction. Good intentions are crucial yes, but the game-defining moves are encouraged. Do you know how many times I’ve seen officers balk when we free their slaves? When there are millions, possibly billions of slaves more out there, unprotected? We may not have trade in a few years time as punishment for our culture. They wish to cut our heartstrings until we are as blank as their stormtroopers; no Senate can stop that.” Her many words surprise even herself, but personally partaking in the pleasantries of Tarkin and Predis has stoked her kernel of justice into a flame.

Heaving, the pair refuse to break eye contact, unwilling to concede. With the sun set, shadows overtake the small corridor, which entombs them until the echoes of Amilyn’s pounding heart abates. Kier’s murmur is final as he leans in close, “I know Senator Organa does a lot for us, don’t diminish his work to keep Alderaan and the galaxy’s citizens safe. We are the future Amilyn, we can carry on his diplomacy or we can become brutes like the Empire. Be careful you choose the right path.”

As he rises to his full height, Amilyn stiffens her posture too, standing tall above him. Her psychedelic colours no longer seem inappropriate to the formal gathering, instead they paint her willingness to protest. “I can only do what I believe is right, but I can assure you that there will be no unnecessary violence. And most violence is.” 

Kier nods: a curt motion as they round a sharp corner their dorms. “I am glad to hear so. Goodnight, Holdo, I look forward to hearing your contributions in the Apprentice Legislature.”

“Thank you for lending me your time and your ear. I look forward to your debates too.” Amilyn replies as she unlocks her door.

Finally slipping into her private room, Amilyn allows a singular rattled breathe to pass through her, in order to shed any ill-feelings from her body. The room is barely larger than the corridor, yet simply being in the illusion of her own space clears her. She changes her clothes and removes her hair from its tie, pacing herself to avoid any foul energy from Predis to leak in. Every stroke of her comb through her hair brushes out any discouragement of Kier’s apparent lack of allyship. Perhaps she could curate a more effective attitude from him, she considers as she works on a particularly challenging knot, if only he could see that Alderaan is not safe forever. She used to have the same judgement as him, after all, until she bypassed the usual HoloNet sites and read intimate accounts of Vader’s terror, and who supported him. Until she witnessed Empire officers threatening peaceful Gatalentan aids for demanding the freedom of their slaves. 

A painful tug on her scalp rips Amilyn’s concentration back to her hair. She focuses solely on her task, mindless to forget the endless black between the planets she lives on and the stars she adores; to forget the endless black in far too many hearts. Untangling the knot takes less than a minute.

With her body settled and her mind as close as can be, Amilyn climbs into bed. As she drifts off, she refuses to think about her day, lest it pester her awake. Sleep comes while she lists the planets and their compositions in the systems around her.

* * *

Amilyn’s first challenge in the Apprentice Legislature comes around quickly, luckily for her. While she is patient enough to analyse policies all day, her body ignites with the idea of engaging in debate. Mild small-talk (although she doubts few of her peers regard her as mild, with her ever-changing hair and odd mannerisms) with her colleagues does not equal to the same rush she gets challenging their ideas in a discussion.

The sun rises with a face as fresh as Amilyn’s as she strides towards the Apprentice Legislature assembly. She finds herself crossing paths with Kier again, though this time is more accidental than the previous week. He offers a polite smile, stiff, she thinks, like every other politician in the Imperial Senate. Still, she offers her own airy one back; it does no good to alienate those who are of differing opinions, especially when he, like her, ultimately opposes the Empire. Since the night they spoke, Amilyn has been careful not to be too radical in her conversations - while she wishes to openly oppose them she knows Lady Predis or some other threat is ready to pounce. She is not on Gatalenta anymore: her wish to avoid Predis has been not only unfulfilled but shredded, for the Sith lady’s presence clings to her even without Predis’ physical form. Amilyn wishes now for her own intrigue about Predis to wane with her fear - it is the focus of more meditation sessions than she likes to admit. Yet like with everything else, Amilyn dives into her personal predicament head-first - she refuses to be beaten at the first obstacle, even if the storm of the Empire has shaken her into patience for her own rebellion. Not everyone is ready yet, as Kier has shown her, and to openly convince them would result in her extinguishing. 

As she steps into the Gatalenta pod, Amilyn contemplates the hum of the structure around her. Forty other candidates are preparing for their first Coruscanti debate while she waits for the introductions to start. If she pays attention to the people behind the ideas instead of being swept up in this modern glitch the Empire labels diplomacy, she should be able to detect a thin whisper of rebellion somewhere, she reasons. She can absorb the atmosphere later. 

With the lights dimmed, a toneless voices booms a standard introductory message across the hall. Ceremony died here when Grand Moff Tarkin left the opening reception, waiting to be resurrected as another prop of the Empire later. Amilyn wonders if their debates will feel as vapid as this. 

Snapping her head in the direction of the sudden lights, Amilyn sees the Alderaan pod illuminate first. There the modest Kier Domadi stands alone, but with no concern for a lack of partner. “I plan to serve the galaxy in the Senate like my own Senator Organa does. But outside of that I enjoy history, particularly galactic battles.” He steps back, ready to pass the spotlight on to another world’s representative, and Amilyn mentally logs his words. Few bounces of the lights are between the Alderaan and the Chandrila pods, yet none inspire Amilyn’s attention. Harp Allor steps up, her voice projecting, “I’ve been helping government on the local scale too; on Chandrila I aid in coastline maintenance to ensure habitats for the native sea creatures.” This support of local government brightens Amilyn’s eyes a little; Harp could be someone on her side. However, from their sparse talks Harp appears to be more interested in being helpful to everyone, which Amilyn can easily see being used against her.

Depressingly few subsequent introductions indicate that the apprentices are here for anything but their own, or worse, the Empire’s gain. Amilyn is grateful for the experience, however, as she starts to unpick the selfish from the possibly violent - out of the two Coruscanti apprentices, Stevis appears to be simply cavalier while his podmate, introduced as Dareel Basi, laces his words with Empire propaganda. She is not going to test Basi until she gets desperate, lest he call for Lady Predis to devour her. When her own name gets called she rises with a vivacity she has to channel through the sheen of memory; the enthusiasm with which she braided feathers into her hair earlier that morning is now spent. Her nerves are still as she announces her hobby: “I like comparing different planets’ traditional astrological charts to see if they agree on the influences exercised by various stars. The parallels are uncanny!” She spies a few snickers from the crowd as the light moves yet again, but is far from bothered. If she can refrain from judgement about their egocentric ‘hobbies’, she can certainly remain unruffled about their assessment of her.

The introductions move quickly after Amilyn's own, as if everyone is talking faster to bring the debate forward. Amilyn’s keen observations do not waver despite the blurring of time (she later finds out her estimate of the length of time the introductions took, and is wrong by half a galactic standard hour - her worst timekeeping since she was five), but support for the Empire dwarfs empathy for its citizens. When the lights finally become constant, Amilyn swears she can feel the shadows around the room clawing at her dress. 

A holograph of a sleek, but hulking building manifests in the centre of the chamber: the proposed new academy for aeronautical engineering and design the Empire wishes to build. Its model starships taking off and landing fly around four different star systems: Iloh, Harloff Major, Lonera, and Arreyel. While many of the teenagers shuffle in their pods, Amilyn remains cool, spending the quiet moments between seconds wrangling her excitement so she can focus. The same toneless voice from before introduces the issue of which system to build the prospective school in. 

In spite of initial hesitation, it does not take long for the Apprentice Legislature to devolve into chaos. Amilyn stays out of it until Kier and Harp lock themselves into pitting Iloh and Harloff Major against each other, emotions rising. She can see that despite their flushes, they are making no progress: the two worlds are evenly matched. “If I might,” Amilyn begins, voice steady as ever, “We have hardly considered Arreyel.” 

Both turn to consider her; Kier's face falls into impassivity while Harp splutters a rebuttal: "Arreyel? There's nothing there! No good transport links, no resources to build with."

"Then there's nothing to disturb, and works can be completed quicker. Like Iloh, but with more space, and it doesn't have the same air traffic issues of Harloff Major. It's a sun-stone in the rock."

Few of the Legislature are convinced. "But the costs would be much higher - we'd have to transport in resources, people, build them accommodation because Arreyel is too poor to house its own population, let alone thousands more." 

"But that would provide jobs for the locals." Kier cuts in before Amilyn can, and she has to admit that his defence of her idea surprises her - she is yet to meet anyone truly interested in her ideas. Unless Lady Predis counts, but that's a thought Amilyn suppresses until the image of Lady Predis is in her usual form of a dark spot in the back of her mind. 

"And if Arreyel is included as a possibility then we must be open to considering it." Amilyn continues, taking the baton Kier passes, their addresses complementing each other. But she knows that the idea of helping an impoverished planet is not going to satisfy the Empire's drones she is presenting to, so she adds, "Perhaps it is time for Arreyel to be part of the galactic community again.”

A wave of movement jumps from pod to pod with the many apprentices that shuffle forward. Derision fades as they rally around the Imperial flag Amilyn manifests.

"But why should it be welcomed when it has never acted in the Empire's interests before? We should be punishing it further if anything." Basi, the fascist favourite from Coruscant testifies. His words leave Amilyn's fingertips tingling with frost. She is not yet intimate with such staunch supporters of violence, and Basi is barely emotional in his impasse: instead, he has as much time as their droid announcer. Amilyn wonders who is scarier: those who revel in the Empire's violence or those who are simply cogs in the Empire's machinery.

"Holdo's points are strong," Kier launches himself back into the debate, "Arreyel would not be an option if the Empire wasn't open to using it, costs notwithstanding. And the academy can help both us and Arreyel, rather than hinder one or the other. Why wouldn't we use Arreyel?" 

He turns to Harp as his former opponent, who lends her voice. "If it helps the Empire, then it helps all of us. I'm willing to go to a vote." Harp's support of her idea does not stop Amilyn's disappointment of her peer's naivety. Even in the heart of government, supposed exchanging of ideas, she is trapped by wilful blindness to the Empire's nature - Harp isn't a violent believer, or threatened into support. As they vote - no one dares to suggest turning down the Empire's redemption project - Amilyn wonders if Harp's shut eyes are to protect her from the Empire or her own conscience.

With a few beeps from their RA-7 droid the votes are cast and counted. "Arreyel has been chosen for the site of the new academy. Thank you for your participation; your recommendation has been passed on." The flat voice announces, leaving the assembly free to go, or free to leave their pods without ill consequence at least. Amilyn does not hinder in gathering herself and leaving her pod, with its framed transparisteel wall presenting her to the assembly suddenly seeming too exposing. Her hairs prickle, sensing something she can't, and Amilyn trusts her senses to navigate through the Coruscant complex, away from the shade the slii plants cast and the Empire's ideology that drips from the Senate walls like Charon venom. Hurtling around corners, Amilyn takes many twists and turns she usually wouldn't, for her subconsciousness locks her in a steel pathway away from the busier routes. When she arrives at her private room without wayward encounters - Sith or otherwise - she allows her body to finally stop. The fog of her overworked cells lifts as she tends to her native Gatalentan plants to chase away her sinking heart. After all, she realises as she watches the glistening stream of water she pours into her plant pots, she was the one who raised the Imperial flag in the debate on the first place; she cannot expect to find another like her when all she presents is the same, tired view of the Empire it enforces on everyone like a galactic cataract. Instead of dwelling yet again on the poor state of the galaxy, Amilyn calls upon her sense of accomplishment at uniting enough people to not only make a decision, but vote in her favour. Warmth spreads through her, and she resolves to engage in more spirituality strengthening hours than time spent in disenchantment. There is life to be lived even here under the Empire and the Sith's oppressive influence - her plants are thriving - and Amilyn can feel that if she deprives herself of her spiritual fuel, she has already lost. So she sends a quick message to Harp and leaves her room, ready to experience the rich cultural crossroads Coruscant holds.

* * *

“I totally knew you’d be into this!” Harp exclaims as she and Amilyn flutter throughout one of Coruscant’s markets. Colours frame open windows from all over the Inner Rim, although Amilyn still manages to as unique as ever with her stellar yellow hair layering her poncho like its second fringe. The first fringe has little bells tied to each tassel Amilyn has darned herself - she still cannot stand the idea of wearing any clothing as it was designed to be. Her fingers are deft as she traces a nova crystal necklace: its vibrant shamrock colours scatter the light around her, gifting her a halo. Harp’s own hands are preoccupied with her credit chip, swiping away too many credits for a luck charm while she brightens the air with her laugh. 

“That bracelet will be a dead datapad here until Huadaad’s in retrograde. That’s when situations will truly degrade in this system, unless you’re going back to Chandrila soon in which case…” Amilyn trails off as she tears her attention from the delicate necklaces to Harp’s blank face. “Huadaad is the Coruscant star for chance. If it’s in retrograde, things will start to go very wrong.”

Harp nods, and after a moment, allows a smile to break through. “Don’t tell anyone, but I actually think all of this astrology stuff is interesting. It’s all superstition of course, but it’s fun.”

An involuntary grin lights up Amilyn’s face too; she doesn’t miss Gatalenta, but she misses this: the easy conversation, the lack of superficiality, hell, she thinks she can even smell some Gatalentan spice wafting the square. In her blink she lets this crack in space swallow her up, drinking in the hustle of the people and their livelihoods. 

“Of course,” Amilyn replies, her voice as dreamy as ever, “I’ll do your birth chart later for you if you wish.” 

Harp laughs again, and Amilyn appreciates her optimism. “Come on, we should go and see Galactic City’s best botanical garden before nightfall. And by best, I mean the one with balmgrass in it, it’s simple but you  _ have  _ to feel it.”

Amilyn allows herself to be dragged through the market by the shorter girl; enthusiasm keeps their feet swift. “You’re their golden child using phrases like ‘Galactic City’s best botanical garden.” 

“No, really,” Harp pants as they emerge from the disco of the market district, “They have holos of the Chandrilan coastline, I’d think you’d really appreciate seeing the sea.” She even giggles a little. “Unless,” Her face drops with a sudden realisation that drags her previously youthful features to her feet, “You don’t want to?” 

“No, no, I’d love to!” Amilyn immediately assuages Harp’s sudden worry. “I’ve not learnt much of Chandrilan geography, especially not its oceans.” And unlike their previous conversations in the heart of the Empire, her words are genuine without any double meaning; she may be disinclined to Harp’s swaddled lifestyle, but she respects her local government work, and she respects the education even more. 

“Great!” Harp’s reticence now slashed, the pair resume their stride wrapped in teenage excitement and lust for life. 

Their mindless pleasure lays their path before they are interrupted - Kier and a man Amilyn fails to recognise stride around a corner, with Kier almost literally bumping into them. His partner retains his grace, however, and Amilyn’s ease is barely displaced. An afternoon out with Harp is not quite enough for her to completely forget who hides in the shadows.

“Oh Kier, hi!” Harp effuses, their bubble firmly intact for her. 

“Hello,” Kier is more stiff than usual; Amilyn spies his hands clasped behind his back and shifts her attention to the stranger, since he must be the reason why Kier is being so formal. “Harp, Amilyn, this is Senator Organa of Alderaan. Senator, this is Harp Allor and Amilyn Holdo, from the Apprentice Legislature.” 

Now Amilyn understands why Kier is so rigid: he must be to stop himself from vibrating with excitement. Senator Bail Organa, despite his modest fashion and broad smile, is one of the champions of democracy whose words inspire Kier and, if she is being honest, ignite some hope for Amilyn too. She does not read much of him, for Empire censorship around him is greater than most, but as she clasps his broad hand in greeting she knows she is meeting a legend. 

“It’s delightful to meet more of the Apprentice Legislature. Kier here tells me that some congratulations are in order here Ms Holdo - you were the one to suggest Arreyel be the new site for this new academy?”

Organa’s words propagate Amilyn’s giddiness; as she looks him in the eye his edges blur. “Thank you Senator, but it was a team effort,” She manages as a reply, yet she is not entirely able to reign herself in as she adds, “Kier was the Jogan fruit of this cake.”

As much as he attempts to be politely stoic, Organa’s mouth twitches a little in mirth. Out of the corner of her eye, Amilyn spies Harp watching the exchange with reverence, which she feels to be a little over-dramatic - she is not deserving of awe like Organa is. “Well, I’m glad the both of you contributed well. I look forward to seeing what all of you bring to the Senate.” He nods in Harp’s direction, and her wide eyes blow with his benevolence. 

Amilyn mentally shakes herself to regain enough composure for the both of them.“It was a pleasure to meet you Senator.”

“And I the two of you. I bid you good day.” Beside him, Kier nods his goodbye, and they continue on their path around the Coruscant Core. Amilyn and Harp watch as the Senator disappears around another corner, his grey robes fluttering against the silver artificiality of the city the last thread of him they can grasp in their sights.

“Wow.” Harp’s single syllable finally cuts the air of reluctance to let their experience end. “I did not expect him to be following us so closely.”

“I don’t think he meant to meet us.” Amilyn replies, secretly almost as awed as Harp looks but almost sounds sarcastic in her deadpan delivery.

“Oh shut up, you know what I mean,” Harp tugs on her arm again, to lead them back to their day out. Amilyn does not have time to respond that she does not in fact, know what Harp means before the girl speaks again, “Us in the Apprentice Legislature. Once the opening ceremony was done my Senator, Winmey Lenz, you met him that night, didn’t care all that much about me. I know it’s only been a couple of weeks, but I’m still only getting used to this Coruscanti life, you know?”

This, Amilyn does know, which is why she is eager in their march through the city. It’s far from Gatalenta - culturally and geographically - so she is seizing merriment with both hands. “Yeah. It’s my first time doing anything like this - yours too?”

Harp looks up at her, eyes suddenly a little dimmer as the Coruscanti lights do not reflect them the same way Amliyn assumes the Chandrilan ones would. “Yeah.” Only the twin beats of their feet and their hearts fill the space, and then, “Thanks for the invite out Amilyn, I don’t think I would have done this otherwise.” 

“You’re welcome,” It’s automatic, yet genuine as warmth surprises Amilyn from her toes to her fingertips. These past few weeks on Coruscant have stretched until Amilyn can swear that they are months, and she feels their presence in her antsiness in her dorm at night, between the storing away of her monoculars and the pull of dreams. This friendship, however long it may last or deep it run, is sincerely welcomed by her right now. “We’re not finished yet though, we’ve still got that balmgrass to find!”

That washes away the lingering pensiveness, and Harp perks up again, her shoulders rising with her smile. “That we do! I think we’re close here, just round up this street then left at the end…”

Harp is correct, and before long the pair are chasing each other around a rare parish of greenery in Galactic City, their worries lost among the leaves. While traffic zooms around them, the engine roars are smothered by their easy laughter and joy of the day.

* * *

A few days of meditation and socialisation further stabilises Amilyn’s mood as she ambles the Coruscant skyways towards the Apprentice Legislature antechamber. Informational packets on the discussion topic for tomorrow are due to arrive, and she is keen to engage in debate again. Even her many ponytails swing with excitement.

Her interest peaks when she arrives to find a crowd is gathered in the antechamber, far more than the usual slow trickle and out the last time she picked received data there. Amilyn pushes through the crowd, apologising as she goes, for they do not part for her as they usually do; everyone’s attention is focused on an electronic screen closer to the hall. Over the heads of many Amilyn can discern the usual display of the Emperor is now a video of Grand Moff Tarkin, decorated in the ceremonial grey of the Empire.

“... special commendation for this Apprentice Legislature,” She hears, and she squeezes through to the front with a clearer view, “Upon initial scouting, engineers found a large radiation source shielded by rocks. Thanks to the recommendation of the Apprentice Legislature, we can now use Arreyel to power many new factories for our military might. I hope future discussions have as hopeful outcomes as this. Long live…”

The cheers of the crowd drowns out the Empire’s motto, but Tarkin’s words are fuzzy anyway. Amilyn can feel her face dropping with the gravity of the iron ball in her stomach. The Empire would not be giving them a special commendation for something so simple as building new factories on an impoverished planet.

“Well now the population there can work, in the factories, right?” A voice asks from Amilyn’s right; she recognises it as Harp’s optimistic tone. 

Over the jeers and jostle of the Empire’s most staunch advocates someone else answers, Amilyn thinks they might be the apprentice from Arkanis or Naboo but she can’t grasp at her wisps of memory, too horrified to concentrate properly, “No, there won’t be enough room - these factories are planet-wide. They have to evacuate in six weeks, no compensation.” 

Now Amilyn is conscious of what her body suggested - the population of Arreyel, already destitute, are becoming truly homeless in a heartless galaxy while they stand around and sneer. The iron in her stomach swells, crafting a new skeleton of disgust from the seeds of dread the first words implanted. The room around her is too clear now; the colours of the bodies packing the antechamber sharp enough to hurt. Someone else speaks, but now she can identify them as Basi, one of the representatives from Coruscant, and his righteous words seize her feet before they make to leave: “Lady Predis was the one to collect their fine - some won’t need compensation.”

Immediately the jeers die; some risk nervous laughter in their place. No one wants to explicitly identify Predis as a murderer. Some probably even believe that the Arreyelans deserve it for likely concealing the radiation source. Amilyn can’t understand why, why they let this happen, why they encourage Predis’ bloodlust like this, why so many have to have their rights stripped away; she rushes out before her anger lights the room ablaze.

Outside, she takes a calming breath, focusing on only her quiet inspiration and exhalation. A draw in, pause, and then a banishment of all the atrocities. She almost wobbles when she realises that this devastation on Arreyel was likely occurring when she was enjoying her time with Harp, but with another breath she reconciles the two situations. Without that time out, she reminds herself, she won’t have the passion for life she needs to challenge the Empire. Drawing open her eyes, she spots Kier marching towards her, face furrowed in concern. 

“Holdo? What’s wrong?” He asks, voice wobbly, and Amilyn realises her grief must still be infused in her face.

“It’s a tragedy,” She begins, calmer now but unable and unwilling to write over her mourning. “The Empire is evicting the population of Arreyel. They found a large source of radiation that can power factories all over the planet.”

His own face darkens too, anger emanating from it. “That’s barbaric.”

“Yes, they -” As she laces her words together, an idea sparks too. “They had the owl’s eye. That’s why they included Arreyel in the choices for the academy.” 

Kier tilted his head a little, as if to understand Amilyn her needed to literally look at her from a different angle. “Are you suggesting that they already knew about the power source?” She nods, mouth set in a grim line, and the bells in her hair remain silent. Kier sighs, shoulders falling in defeat. “You’re probably right. They at least suspected it.”

He turns to the direction of the antechamber, eyes cast in reluctance. Neither of the two have any desire to return and subject themselves to more of the Empire’s patriotism. 

“Want to walk?” Amilyn asks, her hopes rising that Kier will agree. She doesn’t think either of them wish to wallow alone. He turns back to her and nods, without the attempt of a half-smile she raises. Together they are desolate save for their thoughts, as the echoes of the Senate District are muted by the fog of vexation housed in their heads. They don’t even comprehend their surroundings until a solid body crashes into Amilyn, throwing them back into reality. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry Senator." Kier profusely apologises, his grief already reigned in. Amilyn is winded, still between tragedies, and it takes another beat for her to piece together the man in front of her.

"Oh Senator Organa I'm sorry, my thoughts were elsewhere…"

Bail Organa straightens up but holds his hands out to balance her, too. "It's quite alright Holdo, I wasn't looking where I was going either," as he drops his hands again, he takes more than a glance at her, and his eyes gleam with concern. Amilyn's acid green hair no longer illuminates her, but, with her tragic expression, washes her out. "Are you quite alright?"

She doesn't want to lie, yet their collision has deflated her, and now her organs feel heavy. "I have received some news…"

Organa's voice is barely above a whisper. "Ah. You have heard about the fate of Arreyel?"

The pair nod, and Amilyn tries to reply, "It is…" Yet she struggles to find the words, adjective or metaphor, in her exhausted rage at the galaxy. 

Organa nods a little, his shoulders low as if relieved of a weight. Amilyn understand why; every time she avoids another of the Empire’s minions regurgitating vitriol she is thankful too, and she hasn't been living on Coruscant for much more than a month. Organa has managed this for years. "It is. You know, Holdo - and you Kier," His rumble begins again, heavy but not uncaring, "This outcome is not your fault. They would have found the source another way eventually." 

"I know." She says simply, and she does. The Empire's power is beyond her for now, but the hope of change keeps her spine upright. "Injustice and abuse are always happening, no matter what I say or do now. But the pinpricks of light we see now are the greatest stars up close.”

Organa simply appraises her, and for the first time Amilyn can’t discern the way he looks at her. She hopes she’s not imagining the care she thinks he sees. He opens his mouth to speak again, but shuts it sharply as his eyes dim and a presence looms behind them.

Amilyn does not need to turn around to see who it is. Lady Predis steps into her eyeline, as if summoned by their grief. The Sith lady is so tied to Amilyn’s horror that her attention automatically flies to Senator Organa, as his traditional white robes of Alderaan and pacifism can repel Predis into nothingness, but all she sees is the flash of a grief deeper than Arreyel before his usual poker face takes up the mantle. She squashes her suspicion and turns back to Predis; she has been steadfast in her presence twice before and she can do it again now. The fact that she is closer to both the tragedy and the face of it should make no difference: Predis is another human being with weaknesses and emotions, no matter how much she pretends otherwise. Amilyn can do this.

“Congratulations Ms Holdo, I hear you were the first to spot the potential of Arreyel,” With her venom she raises a gloved hand to Amilyn’s shoulder; there is no electricity, no sharp spasm that Amliyn expects. Instead a viscous freeze emanates from the pressure until Amilyn is stone cold too. “Looks like your recommendation led to the best outcome after all.” Predis takes her time with the words, enunciates them before a lavish run of her tongue across her teeth.

Amilyn tells herself she has no desire to get sucked into this conversation, especially not here with Kier and Bail Organa, but Predis’ black hand is slow in its retreat. Amilyn has been claimed, now. “Thank you,” She holds back a gulp, steeling herself to stay even to match Predis’ perverted laudation, “I am here to serve the best I can.”

Predis grins again, flashing wicked teeth, and Amilyn wishes she could fall from this thin line she’s treading. The last thing she wants to do is fully submit to Predis, or the Empire, but she can’t redesign her words to her truer meaning of serving the people without consequence.

“And so you have proved. I hope to see the rest of the Legislature follow your lead.” She deigns herself a motion towards Kier, who stands statuesque beside Amilyn, and even aims a tight-lipped smile towards Organa. “I have more business to attend to elsewhere; I will have to bid you good day. Long live the Empire.”

This is a test; Amilyn can see straight through Predis’s opaque veil. She projects the words back without the slog she feels, but with the same steel many of her peers use. Senator Organa joins in, his voice strengthening as she turns her back, yet Kier remains silent. 

Predis’ figure dissipates into the passageway, and Kier exhales. His relief chases away the tension in Amilyn’s muscles, leaving her feeling oddly balanced enough to return to the antechamber to pick up their required information. Organa’s gaze still lingers far down the corridor, away from Kier and Amliyn, and she files away the idea of a shared history between the two for later. Despite what she is sure is popular opinion, Amilyn is cognisant enough to realise that their second meeting is neither the time nor the place for her outright conjecture. She respects personal boundaries more than her Imperial peers ever can. 

Their departure is a staggered, almost silent affair, punctuated only by their polite but preoccupied farewells. Amilyn’s trip back inside the antechamber is a short one; she picks up her Lolet information pack and leaves. She rejects Harp and Chasselon’s offer of a night-time excursion, citing a wish to be prepared for the next day. It is not a lie, but not entirely the truth either: she wishes to be prepared for any trap the Empire may lay, Lolet debate included. Kier too, declines their offer, instead proposing his own to Amilyn as they exit the antechamber. Reluctant to suffer the Imperial culture alone, they eat together, with their choices of Alderaan stew and Gatalentan tea exposing their need for comfort. Amilyn’s evening is spent poring over the data, this time with a friend, analysing it for the tricks of the Empire she is determined to be fluent in.

The next day Amilyn wakes up early for skyfaring, aware of the need for some balance before her Legislature challenge later. Her easy dress (tie-dye leggings and a bejewelled tunic) and brisk walk to the Gatalentan senatorial complex does not help her callisthenics practice in the small skyfaring room, however. Her usual grace in the air reverts to the shakes of a tree branch in the wind rather than the unyielding trunk. With no opportunity to release her tensions with the clouds of incense, she stumbles down from the scarves, body alight as she forces apart their knots. Thus, the hostility she usually dissipates spurs her way to the Apprentice Legislature assembly claws up her legs, piercing her down to the muscle.

Amilyn reaches her pod with little time to spare, despite the fire in her bones. She is only just settling in while the RA-7 droid begins its drone. “The issue presented to you today is to advise on sanctions against the planet Lolet. Their planetary government stands in violation of Regulation Sixteen-ME, regarding supplying fuel supply as necessary to Imperial pilots.”

Amilyn stands up a little straighter, ready to defend the planet from the same grievous treatment Arreyel is suffering. Lolet is yet another destitute planet, teetering on the edge of the Empire’s rule. According to the droid, Lolet had refused to refuel a stranded TIE convoy, but Amilyn’s own research informs her that such ships were likely there to terrorise the population into surrendering what little resources they have. This entire assembly is just another ploy to chain another planet and indoctrinate the young into the authoritarian rule of the Empire.

The Chandrilan pod lights up, framing Harp Allor for her speech, “I don’t see any need to elaborate on the usual penalties. It’s not as if this was an especially egregious offense-”

“Any offense against the Imperial fleet is egregious.” A protest from the Coruscant pod cuts her off. Dareel Basi stands in the merciless light, his voice as cool as the Empire’s, allowing no room for negotiation. Amilyn sees Harp fluster back out of the spotlight of her pod, face flushed. “If anyone sees this as a small offense, then I am concerned for their respect of the Imperial fleet.” 

Amilyn’s heart pounds, its beats driving the words out of her mouth before she can align them properly. If she fails to act now, there will be nothing stopping the agents of the Empire from sating their bloodlust on Lolet. “If I may have this assembly’s attention,” She commands, allowing none to escape her intentions, “I have some more information to consider.” The snide murmurs likely directed at the fashion adorning her long limbs only stokes the rage inside her chest.

She summons three-dimensional holo-charts on Lolet’s supplies. “As you can see, these show Lolet’s fuel reserves at the period in question. Those levels are much lower than usual, to the point where most planets would consider themselves in a state of crisis. My own research indicates that this is due to Lolet being forced to tax their reserves almost to the breaking point after a major geological instability required evacuating one of their moons earlier in the year. They didn’t give the Empire the requested fuel because they didn’t have it.” 

Silence falls over the hall. Blood rushes to Amliyn’s head as pants away the adrenaline of her speech. Basi doesn’t let her rest, however, and rebuts chillingly. “This chart shows that they had the fuel, in fact. They could have filled the quota.”

“Only by completely depleting their reserves!” Amilyn answers, gesturing towards the holo in front of her. “Lolet would have nothing left to deal with any future emergencies in their system. Imagine their-” She catches herself, the fog of war fading now. To win this debate she has to be smart, not empathetic. “No regulations require a planet to put itself at risk that way.”

Basi refuses to consider Lolet’s population as people. “No regulations say a planet can hold back fuel for that reason either. If the Imperial Starfleet reportes Lolet, and we’ve been assigned to impose sanctions, that it stands to reason that planets  _ are _ supposed to deliver fuel when the Empire needs it.” 

“Besides,” the representative from Arkanis adds, “why does Lolet have to worry about some hypothetical emergency that might never happen? If something did come up, they could call on the Empire for help.” 

The combination of the lazy examination of the Empire’s actions and outright approval of their crimes from her peers blasts away the last of Amilyn’s equilibrium. “But the Empire doesn’t always respond to those calls!”

“Excuse me?” Basi demands, sounding far too much like Grand Moff Tarkin for Amilyn’s comfort. With all the wide eyes of the assembly on her, she realises she may have gone too far; instead of exposing them she has exposed herself. “Are you insinuating that the Emperor was lying when he expressed that his concern extends to all his people? When he made it clear that denying that is an act of treason?” 

“No, I mean-” Amilyn breaks off, willing her body back under control, “It’s a big galaxy! Planets sometimes just escape our notice! That’s just natural.”

She hears another scorn directed at her appearance and apparent lack of focus, and is grateful for it. Her clothes are important to her, but she can sacrifice some dignity and let them portray her as airy if it gets her out of this mess she has created. Luckily Kier jumps to her defence. “That’s enough! Criticising a representative based on their  _ clothes _ is entirely inappropriate.”

The snickers abate, but Basi is still doggedly trying to entrap Amilyn, and now Kier as well. “So you think it’s appropriate to criticise the Emperor?”

“I think being shallow enough to care about people are wearing in an assembly about governance demeans our work.”

Amilyn’s grateful for the lifeline, but the issue of Lolet remains. If she has a chance, then so do they. “I just don’t think it’s right to penalise a planet for- for-” 

“For a lack of clarity in the law.” Kier cuts in, giving her time to piece together a sentence that won’t lead to her execution. “As you’ve said, no regulations clearly state what a planet is supposed to do in this situation.” Despite his lack of preservation about himself (if his repeated open defiance of the Empire is anything to judge him by), Kier cares about Amilyn herself not being dragged away by stormtroopers.

“Exactly.” She seizes this opportunity for redemption. “We should be recommending new language for the legal code, one that gives all planets a fair chance so no others make the same mistake Lolet did.”

Kier shoots a small smile her way as the rest of the apprentice legislators jump on the idea of drafting a new legal code. Amilyn nods back, knowing he’ll understand her thanks. She refrains from the discussion on the legal code as much as she can, save to prod leniency into the draft where possible, but for the rest of the assembly the thrill of the hint of real authority sweeps them off their feet. Even Harp comes back out of her shell and joins the fray of pods in the central discussion. 

As they spill out of the hall, Amilyn wonders how much punishment Lolet will be able to escape. She is not naive enough to believe that they have convinced even one officer that Lolet was too confused to give them their fuel, but she is optimistic about the time she has bought them. She’s not sure what exactly they are going to do with that time - even if some manage to escape the clutches of the Empire and flee to the Outer Rim, they’d still likely end in poverty or as slaves - but she’s proud of herself nonetheless. Her actions have lessened the blow for some, and that’s one half of her goal of her short political career achieved. And after seeing so many of her own age neck deep in the Empire’s lies, Amilyn’s resolve to do something more radical is firm. This cannot be their future.

The flickering of an electronic screen pulls Amilyn into the present. Electric blue imposes the corridor, reflecting the image of the Emperor’s face on every shiny wall. The distortions push the manifestation upon Amilyn’s soul, and she can see why many believe he can read their minds. It takes a few seconds and her an active effort for her to not be intimidated by him. 

Directing her attention away from all screens showing known murderers, Amilyn resumes her wandering. The slii plants and signposts indicate she is deeper in the Senate District that she previously realised. On a whim, she opens the door nearest to her; inside she is surprised to find the grand antechamber used for whole Senate debates, and the white and black of the stormtroopers across from her indicate it is in session. As they approach, she adopts the idea of research, and holds her head high with her identification card in her hands. “I’m here to observe as part of the Apprentice Legislature.” she states, striding past them. With her vibrant clothing and flowing posture, they cannot fit her into a typification, but neither can they reject her clearly valid Senate ID, and so they let her pass where few others do.

Inside the observational chamber Amilyn lets a grin finally sneak up on her. This hall is cavernous, far more so than she is used to, and she can see the history leaking from them. Worlds past have pods here, as if their waiting will be rewarded with another representative and a lively homeworld. No transcripts are made here under the strict censorship laws (likely in case of senators like Organa exposing Empire hypocrisy, from what Amilyn understands), so to truly witness governance at work is just as exhilarating as her own engagement in the Apprentice Legislature, if not more. 

She watches Senator Organa especially, how he only gently presses Empire supporters and knows when to retreat: the ultimate example of how Amilyn’s own debate today should have gone. He is on perfect form paired with Senator Mothma of Chandrila, and while Amilyn catches only the last few minutes of his spotlight, she knows he is a golden thread in the tapestry of her future mentality. With how tangible the oppressive force of the Empire is even here, the supposed heart of democracy, Organa’s views can almost be considered radical. Amilyn ponders the idea of him being the way forward in ending the beasts of the Empire in more ways than one.

Amilyn doesn’t intend for Organa to see her as everyone filters out, but she catches his attention anyway - how can she not with her chemical green hair and kaleidoscopic tunic? He heads directly towards her, his the only face she can discern in the crowd. “Meet me in my office, thirty minutes.” He says, voice low and rushed as he sweeps past her. With his stride away unbroken, it’s like he never said anything to her at all, but Amilyn refuses to mistrust her senses, no matter her initial bewilderment at his behaviour. She allows the crowd to sweep her away, in the opposite direction to Organa’s path. Whatever he wants to meet her for, he wants to be inconspicuous about it, and she is confident she can play along. 

Six weeks of wandering Galactic City isn’t enough for Amilyn to know it inside out - she doubts she would know everything about it even if she lives her for six decades - but she knows the Senate District well enough to make a few deliberate false turns on her way to the Alderaan sector. While it is still unlikely any Imperial spy has been tasked with her yet, Amilyn is aware her little tirade in the Lolet debate can end with a target on her back, especially if she is fraternising with Organa. So despite the wandering ways she takes, Amilyn still knocks on Organa’s office door a prompt thirty minutes after he murmured in her ear. It slides open smoothly, and Senator Organa appears on the other side, a perfect eyebrow raised. “That was thirty minutes down to the second. I’m impressed.” His eyes perform a quick sweep of the complex, and he gestures inwards. “Please, come in.”

Amilyn accepts his offer, her synthleather boots treading into his office with care while the door clicks shut behind her. It is not a particularly large office despite his high status, with just enough room for a desk and two opposing chairs, although Amilyn has little to compare it to. This dishevelled room could be punishment for being the closest thing to an opposing party in the Senate or it could just be the norm for anyone who dares to be a senator when the Empire wishes to disband it in favour of martial rule.

“Thank you for inviting me,” Amilyn begins, shoulders and voice tight as the epitome of etiquette. “Although I fear I may fail this blindfold test.”

“Don’t worry Holdo, I’m not testing you.” But he frowns, and squints at her like Kier does. “That’s not what you meant, was it?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know why you asked me here.” She says, more plainly than usual.

Organa smiles, yet his taut lips hide more world-weariness than joy. “As much as I may be partial to your wordplay, I don’t think it is advisable to hide your meaning behind old Jedi practices… Some may get the wrong idea.” As her impassive stare levels with his own, Organa gestures to the seats before them. “Please, sit. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” She does as is offered, even though the rigid chair provides little comfort. It is as cold as the office around her, which is devoid of any personal trinkets besides a singular holograph of Organa and who Amilyn assumes is his wife. 

“You asked me here to change my language?” 

Organa sits up straight in his own chair; his senatorial robes drape around him like waterfalls. “Well, almost. During my recess today I observed the Apprentice Legislature, and what I heard concerned me.”

Amilyn’s fingers flex uncontrollably. She refuses to panic, panic never does any good, but all parts of her body are on high alert at his words. While she has never identified him as a supporter of the Empire, appearances can be deceiving. She decides diversion may be the most viable tactic. “Were you there in the interests of the next generation or the interests of the Empire?” 

Organa doesn’t visibly flinch, but his restraint is obvious. Amilyn fights back the worry that she is making another misstep as Organa speaks again: “The Arreyel situation didn’t take me by surprise, shall we say.”

Amilyn’s left eyebrow shoots up. “You were monitoring the Empire’s activities.You knew that they wanted us to choose Arreyel so they could find that radiation source.”

“And you’re incredibly sharp,” Organa replies, “Such manipulation has occurred before, in the Apprentice Legislature and yes, even the Imperial Senate. To observe is to know, and to know is to have power.”

It is a common attitude on Gatalenta, and another part of its culture Amilyn can’t stand. “But so many know of the injustice. That doesn’t mean that they have the power to stop it.”

“No, you’re right. But to say that so brazenly won’t help anyone, least of all yourself.”

His anti-Empire broadcasts are the beacon of light she has been searching for, and Amilyn seizes the opportunity to be bold. “But then how do we help them, when you even admit yourself the knot of lies that trip us up when we attempt to use official channels?”

Organa slumps back into the chair, as if each word is a punch. “I have been asking myself the same thing. To openly criticise would be inviting execution if not a war.” Amilyn’s eyes widen: this is exactly what she didn’t realise she wanted to hear. A war means gore and famine and grief, which is no different to the galaxy under the Empire’s rule. But a war would also mean hope, and the current supply is dwindling. “Do not get excited.” Organa emphasises every word. “Any conflict would be a long and arduous process.”

“But you think it is time.” 

He sighs; his indecision about every thought paints the air. “I think getting yourself killed now is of little use. You could do so much good, war or no war, and you and Kier Domadi running around implying the Emperor is heinous is going to cut that good short. You have to be careful, Holdo, the atmosphere here is not as coddling as Gatalenta.”

For the first time, Amilyn’s blood rises in defence of her homeworld. “I understand your point, but Gatalenta’s atmosphere is not ‘coddling’. I have seen the Empire’s officers electrocute those who first try to release their slaves, and the more they come, the more talk there is about imposing sanctions on Gatalentan trade until we learn how to ‘behave’.” 

Sunk into his chair, Organa suddenly looks every one of his many years. “I see. But you will be more cautious?” He is almost pleading, and Amilyn realises she may be as much of a hope to him as he is to her.

“I will. I don’t want to be in chains anymore than you want me to be.” 

Instead of appreciating her irony, Organa’s lips purse around a word he is still deciding whether to form or not. During his hesitation, Amilyn pushes her fingertips against the arm of her chair; the coolness of the metal against her own hot skin assures her that this is reality. She really is watching the idea of rebellion form in the head of someone who can actually carry it out, and isn’t in a fever dream of an Imperial agent’s making after being carted away from the Lolet debate. Eventually, Organa fashions his reluctance into a sentence. “I have to ask… what is going on between you and Lady Predis?”

In any context surrounding Predis Amilyn has to fight to concentrate, but his question has her fighting her body’s instinct to blush, too. “It’s nothing, really. She has taken a shine to me; I am a bounty of more than credits, apparently.” The fact that he thought to ask her about Predis when she has only experienced three interactions with her, and even less with Organa himself surprises Amilyn. Now she considers that her assumptions that Lady Predis gets as personal with everyone else as she does Amilyn are wrong, Amilyn doesn’t know how to feel about it. She settles on bemused, since she genuinely has no idea why Predis is choosing her, and flattered is entirely too positive for her to want to feel.

Organa tries and fails not to let his worry show. “That is unnerving.”

“You’re telling me.” Amilyn’s snappy response catches him off-guard, and Organa barks out a laugh. Amilyn joins in too, enjoying the moment where they can be entirely free. They are safe behind Organa’s locked door, and the lights of the office banish the shadows swirling outside, no matter the sharp angles of the furniture.

Their laughter trails off, and Amilyn’s neurons fire again as she catches the softening of Organa’s face she doesn’t believe he realises. At her pensive looks, he softly asks her what is wrong.

“Nothing is wrong, quite the opposite in fact. You look at me through transparisteel, rather than through glareshades.”

For a fleeting moment, Organa’s smile drops from his eyes. “And many don’t?” Amilyn shakes her head. While others’ focus on her looks instead of her ideas cause pensive moods on occasion, she is and has never been bothered by it. Yet Organa’s serious treatment of her makes her realise that no one considers her the same way he does. “I initially wondered why you lack the traditional scarlet robes and plain dress, but I respect you - and anyone else, providing that they deserve it - no matter their choice of appearance. It is your choice to style yourself the way you do, and anyone who doesn’t respect that is is immature.”

“I agree, but unfortunately many lack the progressiveness to do so too. It is of no consternation to me though, I am comfortable with my rejection of Gatalentan uniform. I cannot imagine being so restrictive with my identity.”

“But,” Organa rebuts, and the slight dimples that appear betray his enthusiasm for this innocent dialogue, “If you are identifying by being the opposite of something, are you still not restricted by it?”

Amilyn finds herself bested immediately by the elder. “Indeed so. That will be the next topic of my meditation, I think.” It’s not often one line can shake her world-view, and she knows if she doesn’t spend at least one evening parsing this idea it will bury into her mind, and rise every time she sees her reflection. “It looks like I’ve got a lot to consider now.”

Organa’s dimples disappear, but the low pitch of affection colours his tone regardless. “As long as you’re serious about being careful, Amilyn.”

“Of course. Thank you, sir, truly.” The datapad to their side beeps, and Bail’s expression turns apologetic. Amilyn offers her hand in farewell. “It sounds like I’d better go. I do promise to look after myself, as long as you do too.”

Bail grasps her hand, his warm hand comforting every nerve in hers. “How can I refuse that offer? Take care Amilyn. I’m sure I’ll see you around. Good luck with the Apprentice Legislature.”

Amilyn leaves with a “Take care!” and sincere warmth spreading from her smile. Somewhere between hope and conviction lies the idea of Bail Organa as an ally and a friend, and it bestows Amliyn with a passion for the future. 

* * *

The next few months on Coruscant contain decidedly less skirmishes with outright treason for Amilyn. Aware she has Bail Organa’s quiet support, Amilyn navigates her Apprentice Legislature sessions without any obviously radical ideas, but she tries to protect the rights of the galaxy’s citizens as best she can. Unpicking the Empire’s reports is not difficult, not once she spends time observing Senators Organa and Mothma weaving their judgements in their own Senate sessions, but precognition of how the Empire is going to use the relatively small situations, such as which fuel source to mine next, to intimidate the populations proves challenging. Yet Amilyn never once gives up, although she cannot help her heart hardening towards some of her peers, the more they advocate in favour of the violence of the agents of the Empire. So she avoids them as much is sensible - she has to know them to understand how to outwit them, after all - and spends her time out with Harp and Kier, with all of them endeavouring to avoid politics in their outings.

The whirlwind of Coruscant masks the approach of Amilyn’s birthday, and before she knows it she is being herded to a vibrant club several hundred levels below their usual haunts.

“What are we doing here?” She yells above the music, whose bass was tangible from the portal they arrived in.

“C’mon, it’s Club Kasakar!” Harp yells back as she shimmies over to Amilyn and Kier, neon drinks in her hands. “Chasselon Stevis would  _ not  _ shut up about this place the last time I went out with him, and if this can get ‘I only drink in level 5000 bars’ Chasselon to enjoy a club, it is the perfect place for a celebration!” 

“Sounds fair enough.” Kier replies, his voice only just distinguishable from the pounding of music. Despite their nights out, he is still too stiff to dance properly. 

Amilyn, on the other hand, is more than ready to join Harp’s dancing. Fuschia lights and electric blue lasers flicker across her face and cut her long limbs in jagged pieces. She laughs and twirls with Harp as they fawn around Kier, knowing he’ll give in and loosen up eventually. The more she sips on her rainbow of a drink, the more time loses any coherence. By pirouettes of Kier’s arms, Amilyn can tell he feels it too. “What’s in this, Harp?” Kier shouts when the three of them are face-to-face, bodies vibrating. 

She laughs again, the sound sliding out easily. “I don’t think you want to know.” Amilyn laughs too, her head fuzzy and limbs independent. She doesn’t think she wants to know either, for whatever it is, it is unlikely to be legal for seventeen year olds to drink, but they all need nights to forget the violence around them. A haze descends upon them, of both the smoke of the club and their own hedonism. 

Hours pass as seconds and seconds pass as hours, until Kier finally sags against a wall, his eyes cloudy and smile dreamy. Amilyn’s sober enough to keep her eyes upon, and bumps through the crowd to check on him, pulling Harp along behind her. He spots her concerned face through the time lag, and nods, mouthing “Tired.” at her. 

Amilyn squeezes herself and Harp in the small space beside Kier, which snaps Harp out of her trance. She takes one look at Kier and Amilyn in their crumpled clothes and skin shiny with sweat, and motions towards the door, questioning written all of her face. They nod, and the trio wobble through the crowd until they burst out the door, panting. No air in the Coruscant undercity is truly cool, but after the heat of the club Amilyn feels as if a blizzard is embracing her. Still buzzed from the atmosphere, as they stagger towards the portal back to their dormitory level, Amilyn laughs. “That was amazing!” Her eyes shine like the glitter she has applied around them. “Thank you so much for taking us out, Harp. Are you alright Kier?”

The upwards motion of their lift doesn’t appear to help his inebriation, but he manages to shoot them a smile. “I’m good, just ready to never drink whatever Harp’s concoction was again.”

“You had  _ one _ drink!” Harp shouts, indignant. All three of them are not equilibrated with the volume change, and cringe against the echoes of Harp in the small portal and the ringing in their ears. But this only fuels their good mood, and prompts more reels of laughter.

Their journey back to the more familiar districts is accompanied by Amilyn’s stumbling singing and their lingering buzz. The early-morning skyways are silent, too late for parties out but too early for the twilight and early risers; the indigo night is their observer, and artificial lights instead of stars illuminate their way. “Don’t you think it’s odd,” Amilyn begins, lips fuzzy but head clear. She ignores Harp’s mumble of “Probably.” to carry on. “We’ve only got two more weeks left of the Apprentice Legis-Legislature.” Disproportionate pride overtakes Amilyn’s thoughtfulness at her successful articulation.

“Don’t say that,” Harp groans. “I still don’t know if I want to go into central government here or on Chandrila.”

“What are you doing, Amilyn?” Kier asks as he begins to regain strength in his limbs.

“I’ve applied for a junior senator position here, for Gatalenta. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I don’t get it though. I don’t think I want to go back to Gatalenta, but here…” She trails off, eyes fixed at her boots kicking out in front of her. Her future is not the melting pot of totalitarianistic attitudes Coruscant is, but it’s not Gatalenta either.

Harp turns to her, eyebrows higher than their spirits. “Amilyn Holdo, can you not make some complicated metaphor out of this? I’d never thought I’d see the day!” Amilyn gently pushes her when she starts to cackle.

“You’ll be fine, you got here alright.” Kier chimes in.

“It’s not my qualifications that I doubt, it’s that I’m sure some competitors are closer with my Senior Senator, and-”

“And you’ve got Organa.” Kier doesn’t let Amilyn finish her moment of weakness. “He’s giving you a reference.

“Really?” Harp and Kier ask at the same time, incredulous.

“I might have mentioned you were applying, and he asked about references, and well… here we are.” They halt outside Amilyn’s room, unwilling to let their night end.

“We never did much work together, just the preparation on the Riosa debate... “

“Amilyn,” Harp clasps Amilyn’s soft hands in her own as she gazes at her, eyes serious. “You are so good at this, amazing even. You are so smart, don’t forget that.”

“Ok.” Amilyn whispers back. She spends a heartbeat more in this bubble of adoration, then rises as upright as she can, swaying only slightly. “Thank you. For your words and the time out. You’ve made this a brilliant birthday, the best I’ve ever had. I’ll see you when I get back from Gatalenta for the last debate and the afterparty.” 

She means every one of her words; when she first started she was convinced she was going to be alone, surrounded by Imperial attitudes for months. Now as she sees Kier’s genuine smile rather than just his polite one, and Harp’s emotional tears, Amilyn is grateful for each second she is spending on Coruscant. She whispers a final goodnight to them, and closes the door behind her, ready to partake in her regular night time routine despite the irregular hour. Hair untangled and mind clear, she settles into bed with warmth.

* * *

Amilyn’s time on Gatalenta cannot compare to the invigoration she feels in her most blissful moments elsewhere. As she sits on the same bed she used to lie in every night, she finds the room devoid of energy. No speeders zoom by, no shouts of life permeate the windows. Silence is no longer as comforting as it used to be, not when it is second nature to strain for the masked meaning in it. With no communication with Amilyn when she was on Coruscant besides the occasional holomessage, her parents now do make an effort to spend their time with her more than their offices. However, after three consecutive evenings with them, conversation is stilted. The walls that Amilyn use to guard herself against political suicide (and actual suicide, since the Empire’s stormtroopers are everywhere) cannot be torn down in a week, and Amilyn’s parents are too comfortable with her being an adult to bother to attempt a familial atmosphere. This does not bother her; she has known since she was young that to evolve she has to leave. So, when the time comes for her transport back to Coruscant, their farewells are brief and without guilt. Her shuttle bounces around hyperspace while Amilyn sits peacefully at the back, meditating. Gatalenta isn’t home anymore - she doesn’t know what is - but as she blocks out the light years she passes, she believes that particular desire is optional. Home, she thinks, as she exits the shuttle and heads to her dormitory, is taming the rush she gets in her Senate pod, is the knowledge that what she is doing helps another living being.

Amilyn flicks her datapad on, intending to surprise her friends with the news that she is back. Instead the flashing of a notification distracts her, and when she pulls it up a brilliant blue job offer greets her: she is being offered the Junior Senator job she applied for. Her joy is immediate but her determination is stronger; as she replies with her acceptance she feels resolution seep into every part of her subconsciousness. This is the beginning of a real career, and she cannot afford to make mistakes, or doubt herself again. Pride may be a dangerous emotion, but confidence is not; Amilyn knows her abilities, and more importantly she knows her limits. 

With her acceptance message sent, Amilyn unpacks her luggage with her head held high. It is not long before a knock on her door interrupts her, and she rushes over, eager to tell Harp and Kier her good news. When she swings her door open she doesn’t see her friend’s supportive faces, but the dark veil of Lady Predis. Refusing to be stupefied, Amilyn speaks first. “Good evening, Lady Predis. Can I help you?”

“I simply dropped by to offer my congratulations, Ms Holdo. I hear that you have been offered a permanent position here on Coruscant?”

Amilyn has never been so relieved to be the personal subject of Predis’ attention - if it’s personal, then Predis isn’t prowling for the Empire. Her tone is even as she replies, “Yes, that's correct. A junior position of course, but it’s something.” 

Amilyn can’t see Predis’ eyes, but she expects they’re gleaming as she is reluctant to unwind details for the Sith lady. “Regardless, I’m glad I’ll be seeing more of you around. I knew you had potential.” The cordial smile twists into a grin, flashing her incisors. “You’ve changed your wardrobe since we last met.” 

Amilyn watches Predis shamelessly devour her tight travelling tunic and leggings. Both now sport block colours, with the tunic lavender and the leggings a practical rust colour. She wonders if this personal attention is advisable. “Not particularly,” She replies, deciding the less intimate this manifestation of the worst of humanity is with her the better. “This is just practical.”

“It’s a good look. Suits you.” Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and an uncomfortable flush in Amilyn’s chest seizes her. She has to consciously remind herself that this is not a desirable situation.

“Well, thank you very much for your kind words. I look forward to assuming my new position soon.” Amilyn’s grip on the door tightens.

“Of course. You must be tired after travelling, I’ll leave you to rest. Farewell, Ms Holdo.”

Amilyn purses her lips in the imitation of a cordial smile. “Thank you again. Farewell.” Lady Predis offers one last smirk before she glides down the corridor, her shadow looking thrice her actual size.

Amilyn snaps the door shut, severing their connection. Running a hand through her hair, she throws herself on her bed and wills herself not to scream. She wants no time for Predis and the sick games she likes to play with Amilyn: she can’t deny her own fear of Predis and the Empire’s power. And with all that Predis knows about Amilyn’s most recent developments - travelling to Gatalenta, the job offer - Amilyn wonders if she will ever shake the shadow. Even worse, she has to admit to herself that Predis’ presence is like glitterstim, and she wants more after every hit. Amilyn doesn’t believe she truly wants to shake her shadow.

* * *

Amilyn’s final Apprentice Legislature debate goes well, so well that the Gatalentan Senator Ryn Grall attends the closing party to congratulate her. Transitioning into her Junior Senator Advisor role starts early for Amilyn, and she spends the official conclusion expanding on her Coruscant network and familiarising herself with the personalities of those who will be shaping her political landscape. She learns Kier’s Coruscant-Alderaan junior liaison job starts in two days, when Harp will be returning to Chandrila for a position in environmental management. Luckily, many of the unsavoury characters among her peers have failed to ascertain jobs placements in Coruscant’s Federal District, although Dareel Basi will be lurking around as he shadows military advisors.

The unofficial afterparty is where she lets loose. With one night left, she throws herself into the party atmosphere, and even manages to persuade Kier into dancing too. There are no quasi-legal substances this time around either; Amilyn is conscious of her new career now. The responsibility for others she has always felt now has legal grounding, and she is going to do nothing to jeopardise that or her new apartment in the Coruscant Core. Nothing besides searching for the organised Rebellion she is sure exists, anyway.

Learning how to navigate her new status to get the most amount of information possible is a challenge Amilyn embraces. Her job has many perks (including an osmium tiara her parents sent as a congratulatory gift, which sits atop her head like the rings of a planet every day), but the unique ranking she has achieved is her favourite. It allows access into situations and meetings others can’t obtain, but also means that senior officials underestimate her. She never tries to charm them - her brand of charisma is unique to say the least - but she can convince them that she is not a threat to them, so there is little reason to withhold knowledge from her. This idea is not foolproof, but she works at it enough for it to be effective, and she has indulged in a few celebratory evenings with the Gatalenan office after she has provided them with the exact manipulation to press an advantageous bill through the Senate. 

Privately, she is finding even more suspicious destruction of Empire infrastructure. Few incidents are reported on the HoloNet, and Amilyn suspects they were only reported because holojournalists were already there by chance and not already under the control of Imperial Officers. There is always a scapegoat, as loathe as the Empire is to admit that not everything is under their perfect control. But she gets by regardless, prodding the gossip chains of Coruscant until she pieces together likely stations or frigates that have been attacked. She can’t talk to Bail about it as often as she would like, since her schedule is overworked and he spends more time on Alderaan, helping, as far as Amilyn has heard by snooping around the Chandrila Sector, his wife Breha host banquets. Instead she increases her skyfaring practices, and finds a sense of security high in the halls she can’t replicate on the ground. 

Six months in, Amilyn is managing to avoid any more contact with a particular Sith agent, but is aware that this comes with a price. She is living with the unsettling knowledge of Lady Predis’ proliferating presence in the news, where her violence is increasingly hard to justify - genocides by the military are easier to neutralise than a genocide by one bloodied hand. Amilyn is grateful for Bail’s words to her, lest she become self-sacrificial to put a target on her own back to draw Predis’ attention away from innocents. Instead, she waves off any previous radical public comments as misguided youth, and is mostly not disappointed at Predis’ lack of visits.

Amilyn’s apartment is small, but no less decorated for it. Star maps plaster the walls, and the trinkets she receives from Harp litter her shelves. She is sitting at her desk, staring at the last message she received from Kier. It is dated a suspicious five weeks ago - too long ago to simply have been busy, yet nothing in his tone is a red flag. Something is certainly wrong, but save from jumping on a ship to Alderaan, Amilyn has to wait until Organa responds to her inquiry about Kier’s whereabouts. While she would certainly be prepared to fly to and from Alderaan, Amilyn doesn’t have the time to scour the entire planet to find him, and she values patience. Conscious that premature action can lead to both of their demises, she settles into her research for Senator Grall.

_ Ping! _

Recognising the tone she set for Bail Organa’s personal comm line (slipped to her in her first week as a Junior Senator, ‘just in case’), Amilyn snatches her datapad. The message is a simple address and a time for the next day, which Amilyn understands as something very serious, very classified has happened to Kier. Her insides turn to stone as she continues her official research. She cannot act like anything is wrong, but it takes all of her breathing exercises to lull her to sleep that night.

Amilyn rises before the suns the next morning. Even her actions inside her apartment are quick and quiet, as if someone is watching her. If Bail is worried enough to not use his office, then someone may be. Avoiding the busiest skyways, Amilyn’s steps are swift in her path to the towers of the Senate Apartment Complex. Trepidation fills her as she steps into the lift, considering all the options she has if this reveals itself to be a trap. These levels are for those of only the highest status in the Naboo system, and while Bail certainly fits the criteria of high status, the lift speeds past the Alderaan quarters.

The doors slide open, and an apartment larger than the Apprentice Legislature hall splays before Amilyn. Yet despite its grandeur, it is sparsely lit, with great curtains pulled across the windows blocking the first wisps of daylight. Amilyn takes a few steps in before she recognises Bail sitting on a beautiful circular sofa, his gaze fixed on a spot in the darkness Amilyn can’t fathom. He appears more pensive than drugged, so Amilyn takes a tentative step towards him. Footprints follow where she treads away the dust, but Amilyn’s instincts do not scream at her to turn back. She clears her throat, the sound echoing in the dead room, hoping he’ll wake from his self-induced trance. 

“Oh, sorry I didn’t see you there Amilyn,” He jumps, but is voice is rough as if it is suffering from the same disuse as this apartment. “Please, sit.” He grimaces as he pats the seat next to him, for clouds of dust pillow from it. As Amilyn smooths down her dress to sit, he continues, “Sorry for the state of this, it’s the apartment of an old friend. As you can see it’s not been used in a long time.”

His stalling plants seeds of fear in Amilyn’s chest. “You think your office and apartments are the Empire’s entertainment.” At his nod, she presses on. “I asked you if you’ve heard from Kier Domadi. After all you work with him but.. something’s happened to him, hasn’t it?”

Bail’s whole body sags as if he has lost all the will to keep himself in human form. He draws the seconds out, and Amilyn lets him, because in those seconds Bail doesn’t have to voice the torment he is feeling, and such a respite looks rare for him. Eventually, he swallows thickly, and replies, “ I haven’t heard from him in weeks. I think I got him targeted by the Empire. He was so young, and I was too critical… I was supposed to protect him, but instead I got him killed.”

The pair sit in their joint paralysis. Even though she expected it, Amilyn cannot fathom how she is never going to see Kier again. He didn’t even want to fight the Empire, and he is still a victim. A sparkle of light reflects from a tear rolling down Bail’s cheek, and it breaks Amilyn out of her numbness. “No,” She says with all her remaining fervour - she will not let him blame himself for this. “You didn’t kill him, the Empire did. I know you will blame yourself anyway, because that’s who you are, but no matter how much you serve them, they would still kill those around you to intimidate you, remember?”

She doesn’t realise she is crying until she sees the reflection of herself in his eyes. “You’re right, of course,” He says gruffly, drying his eyes. “I’m sorry about this, you don’t need me to add to your grief-”

“Don’t apologise,” Amilyn cuts him off again. Kier is already dead, nothing can bring him back, but this grief they feel can honour him. She feels she owes him that. “Honesty is valuable. To cry freely is to feel, and that’s what Kier wanted, and that’s what the Empire don’t want. To feel, to love - it’s a rebellion in the most self-sufficient way.” Now is not the time to press him about the sedition Amilyn is convinced he is seeding, but the hope of a life without this cruel regime is what makes this bearable, for both of them. 

That manages to prompt a smile, watery as it is. “Your insight surprises me every time. I don’t know why I’m not used to it by now.” A chuckle and then, “Thank you. But really - are you okay?”

More tears leak out, unbidden. “No.” Amilyn shakes her head simply, her sad smile disappearing. “My friend is dead, when I last saw him months ago, and I can’t tell anyone. When someone asks me about him, I’m going to have to lie. Although-” She tilts her head slightly, the light shining in from the crack between the curtains making her squint, “To say I haven’t heard from him would not actually be a lie, but it still will hurt.”

“If you need anything - anything at all - you can come to me. But,” Bail pauses, looking in every bit of physical pain she he did when he admitted his supposed crime, “Maybe stay away in public, I don’t want you to lose your life as well as your friend.”

“Thank you, but I don’t think avoiding you is going to do anything. They’re going to come for me eventually too.” She doesn’t mean to wound Bail, but he chokes as if she has punched him. “Not because of you,” she adds hurriedly, “My own record isn’t golden either. They will keep going, as they have done before us, as they will do after. Maybe not after, not if we’re lucky, but that is their nature. You know that more than I do.”

Bail's face is greyer than when she approached him, and layer of guilt settles around Amilyn's heart as well as the grief. She rises quickly, removing all traces of tears from her face. "I'm going to go," Her voice is quiet, too scared she will say something that will unintentionally bury him in more blame than what he is already entombing himself with. "Thank you for telling me." She rushes out of the suite, and almost runs back to her own apartment, likely in full view of any of the Empire's recording devices. Amilyn will berate her ineptitude about that later, while now she sobs into her pillow at the loss of one of the closest friends she has ever had.

* * *

The rest of her first day knowing loss so intimately passes in less of a daze than Amilyn expects it to. She dries her tears, changes her clothes, and goes to work, all the while so much rages simmers beneath her skin that she is surprised no one burns when they come close to her. Instead of letting it dissipate, she channels it into her work, for she cannot accept her emotions as just feelings when everything in the universe is so connected. She has to use this to do good.

Amilyn spends months dodging the censorship on official records, finding loopholes in the legislation opened by centuries of contradiction to follow and cross-reference shipping logs and ‘spaceport development plans’. She saves old ones and regularly checks the new ones, marking certain planets as suspicious when their connections to retired weapons traders are erased; what isn’t in the official logs is as telling as what is. The same names appear over and over, often systems with little reason for any space traffic - Crait, Paucris Major - but with how quickly they disappear Amilyn can’t gain any real evidence of an actual insurgent organisation to confront Organa with. It’s eavesdropping in bars and the ‘chancing’ upon sponsor dinners that lead her to the real idea of the people behind rebellious attacks on the Empire. Not even a year into her first term has Amilyn certain that Bail Organa - as cold as he acts towards her now for show - is joined by the Chandrilan Senator Mon Mothma in their rebellion, although she has less excuses to get close to Mothma. She is less sure on where Mothma’s fellow senator Winmey Lenz stands, for Amilyn can’t find any financial support for them despite his schmoozing.

While Amilyn tracks Lenz’s tangled trail like a Corellian hound, it is what some call luck that leads her to strike gold (Amilyn prefers to think the alignments of the twin Chandrilan moons means that the Force favours her time on the planet). She is visiting Harp, attending a political ball in Hanna City that has the pair excited for weeks - such an opportunity to grow their networks and spend time together are rare now they are bound by their respective jobs. The possibility of following Lenz there is another bonus for Amilyn. Ironically she has no intention of following him out to a secluded corridor when she sees him conspiring with an Imperial Officer. Originally, she only wishes to find a refresher, but the white jacket of the officer halts her: such a uniform is of too much significance for Lenz to be making a deal with for misdirection intended for the Empire. 

“...useful for new developments in the Crait system, that suggestion thanks to you again, Senator.” Amilyn hears the tail end of the officer’s sentence from behind the corner she is shrinking behind. At the mention of Crait, where she knows Organa is funneling credits for ‘minerals’, a chill seizes her muscles. 

“And you can’t get quadanium steel this cheap elsewhere.” It is unmistakably Lenz’s voice in reply. “Do we have a deal, Director?”

The clap of a handshake, and then, “That we do. The Empire thanks you for your service.” 

Amilyn doesn’t linger to hear their parroting of the Empire’s motto or get discovered. She hurries back to Harp in the main ballroom, refresher forgotten. Adopting her usual semi-formal demeanour for Harp is difficult with Amilyn’s pounding heart, but she manages it, and no one in the too-bright room around her suspects anything is wrong. Bumping her way out of the hall like an amateur podracer, Amilyn makes her excuses and rushes back to her apartment, hoping everyone thinks of her as scattered enough to cover her odd exit. Now she knows why she has been ambivalent on Lenz’s stance on the rebellion: he is ambivalent too, playing both sides until he can see the clear winner. As much as this shoots dread throughout Amilyn - if Lenz’s betrayal ends in disaster for them, she doubts anyone else will oppose the Empire for centuries - it is revitalising to know that Lenz considers Organa’s rebellion significant enough to challenge the Empire.

However, that won’t matter unless she can inform Organa or Mon Mothma that Lenz is a traitor, supplying cut-rate materials and probable rebel outposts to the Empire, and she doubts Senator Mothma would actually believe her. If Amilyn was her, she would think herself an Empire ploy too. Amilyn stays in Harp’s apartment just long enough to grab her datapad, credit chip, and most comfortable pair of boots before fleeing to Hanna City’s spaceport. She’s not a target yet, but the exercise clears her mind until she has the sense to not blaze a direct path to systems housing suspected insurgent activity. Instead she jumps on a shuttle to Pamarthe under a fake name, hoping that one of their many pilots will be willing to part with a ship for her to take deeper into the Outer Rim. She doesn’t know where Organa is now, due to his distancing of himself from her in his attempt to protect her, and while she has enough time to lead any future follower away from her destination, she can’t be sure Winmey Lenz will restrain his turncoat nature while she searches the galaxy for Bail. Amilyn is determined to find this rebellion once and for all, so she travels with surety to the planet that is in the most danger: Crait. For a barren planet covered entirely in salt, it is getting too much attention from either party. Organa has a lot of ‘trade’ with it, and now the Empire are interested too. If they get there before she does, whoever is there is going to get decimated.

In her hour on the Pamarthe-bound shuttle, Amilyn refuses to doubt her decisions. In lieu of worry, she sends an apology message to Harp. It’s tenuous at best, mentioning a family emergency when Amilyn can likely count on one hand the amount of times she has mentioned her family to Harp. But Harp doesn’t question it; she sends within minutes her apparent understanding of such situations changing the perspective on distant family members. For once, Amilyn is grateful for her friend’s naivety. Amilyn also purchases a change of clothes before she lands, wincing as she swipes an extraordinary amount of credits over to the vendor. As much as she loves her golden ball gown, she needs the unassuming wares they sell more. If any agent of the Empire (an unfortunate image of Lady Predis fills Amilyn’s mind) is tracking her, she fits in better in the Pamarthe islands dressed in simple leggings and a tunic rather than the shining beacon she was wearing on Chandrila.

Several hours and one intense haggling session later, Amilyn pilots her bedraggled ship - an old prototype of an A-wing starfighter with its weapons stripped - into the atmosphere of Crait. The scanners she picked this ship for light up under her touch, but the planet’s surface appears to be as desolate as its orbit. She urges the ship closer to the ground, and a blip of life ignites her hope. Amongst the canyons of the northern continent, enough heat registers to show a possible settlement, too big to be a herd of crystalline vulptices shimmering beneath her. Engines thrusting, she pilots the ship towards it, preparing for contact.

“This is Holdo of-” The small ship shudders, throwing Amilyn around in her seat like a ragdoll. She depowers the engines as a tractor beam sucks her in, not willing to risk a crash landing into the cutting salt. As thrilling as it would be, if she dies so does the knowledge of Lenz’ betrayal. “This is Holdo of Gatalenta, requesting permission to land. Safely.” She tries again, suddenly hyper-aware that they may not be as receptive to her as she imagines. This could even be a trap of the Empire’s doing; planting fake logs that require a hybrid knowledge of past and present legislation and technology to entrap dedicated rebels sounds a little extravagant, but Amilyn knows that the Empire would find found some way to do it if they so wished. Or, she realises with a jolt, someone could have manipulated this entire situation to capture  _ her, _ after all, Lady Predis hasn’t manifested in a close skyway for months. Perhaps she has found another way to toy with her.

Amilyn formulates a response for all these situations while repeating her message of benevolence to the origin of the tractor beam, which she doesn’t want to escape even if she has the skill to. Heavy wind buffets her ship and sweeps the salt crust away, exposing the blood red soil before her. The desolation of the flat lands is broken only by a few salt drifts and a mountain, their silence empty. Behind the thick windscreen, only Amilyn’s message echoes back to her. She finds herself preferring the heavy interactions with Lady Predis to this.

As the ship nears the base of a mountain, one of the few features of Crait’s flat land, a clunking rumble of machinery bursts out, enveloping the ship. Amilyn doesn’t stagger this time, prepared for the worst. The mountain splits, sending wave after wave of salt in every direction; Amilyn’s ship teeters on its landing gear in an alarming game of tug of war between the tractor beam and the force of nature. But when the salt clears, Amilyn sees that this is no natural phenomenon: a metal structure protrudes from the mountain not one hundred metres from her pilot’s seat. She almost vibrates with anticipation.

Five figures, soldiers most likely, emerge from the shelter, three of whom are armed with anti-aircraft guns. Her console crackles to life. “Vacate the ship with your hands up.”

Amilyn can’t tell which of the soldiers issues the demand, but she can determine that they sport a distinct lack of Empire uniform, favouring orange and white protective gear instead. She complies with their demands, eager to meet the most tangible evidence of what she has been hoping for for so long. As she exits her ship, sharp winds whip up salt in her face, blowing the last vestiges of caution away. Every stiff crunch underfoot is accompanied by a blaster aiming at her.

“State your intentions here.” The same soldier speaks, neither hostile nor welcoming.

“I come with information.” She starts, voice loud and strong despite the salt scratching her throat. Then, when her heart yearns to take a chance, “For the rebellion.”

In front of her, the peripheral soldiers shift uncomfortably, and Amilyn knows she’s right. She gives them one final push: “Please, contact Bail Organa. Tell him it’s Holdo.”

They don’t immediately shoot her, which Amilyn takes as a success. The air vibrates with crystals and ardour while she watches the leader converse on their private comm unit, presumably with someone in the base behind them. Several heartbeats stretch between them before they nod curtly to her. “Come with us. Keep your hands by your sides.”

She complies, body strong and mind running with excitement and determination as she is marched into the shelter.

Inside feels like pitch black compared to the brilliant reflections of the sun against the salt outside; Amilyn has to squint to see. They let her descend only a few steps underground before ushering her into a small room half full with crates, although the echoing of movement from below betrays the real base of operations.

“Wait here.” The lead soldier commands as they usher the rest of their squad from the room, thankfully lit by a solitary bulb. They shut the metal door with a final clunk of lock sliding home, and Amilyn turns to consider the room. She can be patient, is patient, but her trust for this to end well does not stop her from investigating. Yet the room is empty aside from the pale crates, and she is suddenly struck by unease that this may be the last time her words are weapons enough. She picks at the crates, almost less confident that she can silver-tongue her way out of possible danger and into the rebellion, but the complete lack of observation of her settles stray nerves. The soldiers are underestimating her, with her braid of sapphire and rose hair and mismatched jewellery. She doesn’t look like a threat.

The clink of the door draws her attention back to its steel frame, and she rises, ready to meet any challenge presented to her. A shadow falls around the corner as sharp as Amilyn’s mind, but instead of some blank military leader, a familiar figure fills the doorway.

“When I said ‘contact Bail Organa’, I was thinking of you as an uncracked koja nut.” Amilyn announces, completely seriously. “Not to find you here too.”

“Amilyn,” He beings gravely, although his fingers twitch as if he is stopping himself from embracing her after so long without even acknowledging her existence. “What are you doing here?”

“I overheard Winmey Lenz offering cheap quadrium steel to the Empire. Whatever he sends to you, if any, he’s sending more their way, to a white jacket Officer.”

“That is troubling, Amilyn, but not-”

“The same officer thanked him for suggesting this system for developments. They had worked together before, privately, too, but I don’t know what else Lenz told him.”

Bail pales. “When did you hear this?” Every muscle in him is stiff.

“Earlier today, well, last night. On Chandrila.” His lack of response knocks worry into Amilyn, for she has never seen him like this before. It’s not the anxiety she saw after Kier’s death. She thinks it might be anger.

“Is that everything on Lenz?”

“Yes.” Amilyn can feel the vivacity leaking out of her bones. Bail is not raising his rebel flag and enveloping her into their ranks.

“Okay. Thank you Amilyn, for bringing this to us. I need to know how you found us, because we thought we were being careful, but if there’s a trail then more than we know could be at stake. We can go somewhere more comfortable to discuss this, if I can count on you to never repeat anything you see here.”

It’s not enough. “Of course I won’t tell anyone, but I can’t be your one-way mirror. This, what you’re doing here, I want to be a part of it,  _ need  _ to be a part of it. The galaxy needs everyone it can get.”

Bail’s formality drops from his shoulders as crosses the room to approach Amiyn. Up close she can see every crease delineating his skin, framing his eyes like tired peacock tails. They seem deeper since she last saw him, as if running this operation has not provided the hope he thought it would. “I can’t keep you from this, can I?”

“Look at where avoiding me has gotten us regardless.” Amilyn pauses, softening the breath that escapes between her teeth. “You once told me that I could do good for this galaxy. Let me try.”

He sighs, but instead of being weary his ensuing smile is dazzling in its honesty, as all of his resignation left with his exhalation. “I see I can’t stop you, and if you’re skilled enough and determined enough to reach here than I don’t think I should want to, either. I need to evacuate this base before the Empire’s scouts come knocking; is there any way we could be tracked using your methods in our evacuation?”

“No, not unless you’re moving credits around…”

“Good, that’s good. Meet me on Yavin IV in a week’s time, we can explain everything to each other then. The base isn’t fully operational yet, but Lenz doesn’t know of it, so it should be safe for now. I’ll let the others know to hold off on any credit transactions until you can fully brief us on how you tracked us.” Amilyn nods, blood surging as she finally glimpses into the real action opposing the Empire. Bail whispers the coordinates to her, before adding, “Speak nothing of this before then. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you have to carry on with your week like nothing has changed.”

It’s impossible for Amilyn not to grin. Despite the seriousness of the situation, the Empire on their tail, she is talking to Bail again, the real Bail behind his cold mask. “Now, that will be more than possible. Good luck Bail.” As he clasps her shoulder in goodbye, an old Jedi saying sparks in her mind, dredged up from some forbidden teaching still alive on Gatalenta. “May the Force be with you.”

Her grin jumps to Bail, her presence rejuvenating him, although his eyes shine with the light of years past when he replies, “May the Force be with you too. Now go, I’ll see you soon.”

She nods her goodbye, unwilling to drag this out any longer. They all have a role to play now, and hers is not here on Crait. No soldiers aim any blasters at her on the way out, just respectful eye contact. Amilyn wishes that she could give them more than a smile for her solidarity, that her internal need to help is as obvious to them as it is to her. She settles for bestowing as much benevolent energy as she can as she passes them on her way back out to the shining crust of Crait. Jumping into her ship, its roar to life matches hers. Her departure is swift, but she does not will it any faster; respectful of the galaxy, and the Force’s, wishes. To be premature or lax in her path will not lead to her desired outcomes, she contemplates as she propels her ship into hyper-space. So, instead of spending her journey to Gatalenta to give herself an alibi wishing herself in the future, Amilyn spends her time much like she usually would - meditating, playing mental Dejarik with the galaxy - the only difference being the undercurrent that sharpens her mind just a little more.

* * *

One unassuming week later sees Amilyn bidding goodbye to her colleagues in the Gatalentan Complex on Coruscant, her usual cheery smile betraying nothing. According to her office small talk she is having a quiet, meditative weekend, which Amilyn doesn’t even consider a lie - if anyone around her assumes she will be taking it on Coruscant or Gatalenta, that is their mistake. She hasn’t booked a transport anywhere in her own name, and Amilyn wonders if she should have, or if that is creating a too complex web of lies for her to evidence. Instead of travelling with others she intends to use the ship she bought it Pamarthe, safely stored in a small hangar under the false name of Vastra Lin-Tai. On her amble back to her apartment, still in her formal Coruscant demeanour, Amilyn mentally repeats her plans for next week’s work, as if those around her can sense her anticipation for her rebel plans and would report her immediately. The shimmering images of the Emperor lining the corridors have not changed in her two years there, but Amilyn understands caution now - when she was part of the Apprentice Legislature she was only yearning for an uprising, but now it is tangible she is all too aware of how quickly it can be snatched away, too. 

“Ms Amilyn Holdo, we meet again.” Amilyn doesn’t have to turn around to know whose silk voice slides under her clothes and halts her in her tracks. She pivots slowly, gracefully, stretching out the second so she can allow any wisps of rebellion to disappear, hiding in a part of her mind she locks up. 

“So we do.” Amilyn remains remarkably cool as she takes in the image of Lady Predis, who hasn’t outwardly changed in the months of their separation. Her posture is still upright, her black cloak still sheathes her, yet now it doesn’t quite hide the darkness within - Amilyn can feel the waves of Predis’ corrupted soul as if they are fingers gripping her skin. “It has been almost a year since we last met, has it not?”

“I believe so. You have been busy no doubt - Senator Grall sings your praises.” Predis inches closer to Amilyn, until the shine of her brilliant white teeth threatens to blind Amilyn.

“I’m only doing my job - helping the Empire, helping the galaxy.” Amilyn smiles back, and while it is meant to simply be another part of the farce, tingles in her lips creep up on her. She doesn’t want to be stuck on this skyway with Predis of course, but with any anti-Imperial thought buried deep she can’t find a reason to leave, either. “What brings you here, after so many diplomatic meetings away?”

“I came to oversee my favourite projects here. I find that there is nothing quite like the crowds of Coruscant. There is so much viable life here, it is… refreshing.” She draws out the syllables like meat from a bone, stringing them along with relish. Amilyn can't help but lean into it; she had forgotten how intoxicating it is to play these games, to watch Predis' tongue work over her lips, and now she wants to dive into this fascination.

"I understand," Amilyn replies, as much as she doesn't understand, never can, thanks to the small voice in her mind reminding her that Lady Predis is drunk on the idea of murdering the planet. Amilyn can never have that power, because she never wants it. "Every individual here has a light."

"Indeed. Do you want to come back to my apartment tonight?" Predis doesn't hesitate with her question, like she hasn't learnt - or isn't interested in - how regular people pose such propositions.

Amilyn's pupils blow; for once she is taken aback. An answer rises and dies in her chest as her lips knit together a more sensible sentence: "No, thank you Lady Predis." As soon as the words touch the air she tapes her lips shut, lest she give away more than she should. The fact that her body is tilted closer to Predis than her words suggest is just another manipulation, she half-tries to convince herself, despite all her efforts at honesty in her meditation.

"If you're sure." Predis' voice is still dangling a lure, dripping with fake casualness and an edge Amilyn can't identify. She can't imagine Predis is used to not getting anywhere with her blunt flattery and fear, and Amilyn's refusal to give her a reason for her rejection must be driving her wild.

"I am." The voice in Amilyn's mind peeling back the fog of the interaction is getting louder, insisting she has responsibilities to fulfill and morals to uphold. "I better get going actually, I have next week to prepare for." She straightens up, leaning away from Predis to punctuate her words.

"Of course, Ms Holdo, if that helps you serve the Empire better. But don't work too hard; you'll have to play eventually." Predis settles on a grin again, one infused with the surety that Amilyn will give in eventually.

"Goodbye, my Lady.” Amilyn says as she tilts forward a little, using her shadow of a bow to appease the Sith Lady. “Long live the Empire.” Amilyn sweeps away, her gown fluttering behind her with the power she is finally wrenching from Predis’ dark hands. She doesn’t have to look back to know Predis is scrutinising her like she is a scalefish in a bowl.

Amilyn doesn’t let herself stop or even think until she is safely on her ship, overnight bags stowed in the back. Only once she is safely settled into hyperspace en route to Yavin IV does she allow her body to relax a little. She lets go of the knot Predis looped her organs into, dissipating her stress into the infinite reaches of space. Now among the stars it is just her and her hope that the alliance she joining will achieve peace for the galaxy. This, she thinks as she eyes wisps of lavender curls around peeking out of the cap she donned before retrieving her ship, is what freedom truly is.

Amilyn’s hyperspace flight recoils from its tranquil weekend hours to rocket her into the Yavin system, a little bumpily due to the wear of the ship. Navigation around the bright gas giant of Yavin is easier with few obstacles in her path. As Amilyn passes the moons and comets of the system, she can’t help but be struck by awe; for all that the Empire tries to clamp an iron reign on the galaxy, they have yet to abuse whole star systems at once. Her little ship sails past Yavin’s moons, all noise swallowed by the wonder of space. 

Yavin IV shines with life as Amilyn enters its atmosphere. Entering the coordinates she memorised from Bail, Amilyn surveys the lush jungle world at the same time, allowing the life force from the native flora and her to intertwine. The moon doesn’t feel like a battlefield, but when Amilyn firmly lands her ship under the many vines of the canopy, she knows there is great power here. Whatever comes, she will remain standing.

“Base One this is Amilyn Holdo, as requested by Viceroy Organa.” Amliyn declares her presence in her ship, broadcasting her comms only a few metres in each direction.

The next few seconds seem to stretch in the silence. Eventually her console splutters to life and she hears another human answer, “Holdo this is Base One. Permission to enter is granted.”

The ground underneath her ship rumbles, and broad leaves in front of her sweep away to reveal an ancient stone doorway, quite small for a structure of its age, protruding into the clearing. The stone matches the triangular peaks jutting above the jungle canopy Amilyn saw on her entry, but not the modern tower she spies through the trees behind it. Its engraved doors grate open, and Amilyn finally recognises the architecture - it is the Great Temple used by the Sith several millennia previously. Only a few places in the galaxy still dare to whisper the old legends of the Force - Jedi or Sith - and Gatalentan libraries are some of them. As Amilyn hops down from her ship and approaches the doorway, she is hesitant to even touch the stone, for she swears it is alive with the sheer energy it holds. 

Inside can only be described as an antechamber, constructed with seamed metal that sheets the walls. Ferrocrete reinforces the floor; the perfect blend of old and new.

“Amilyn!” Bail enters the room from another dark doorway opposite, his tone surprisingly jovial. “I’m so grateful we’re meeting properly. I have a room set up for us, if you’d like to follow me.” As usual he is dressed in his authoritative grey robes, but unlike usual he is not so reserved, and apparently eager to guide Amilyn through his base. But the mood is infectious, and Amilyn follows him in high spirits. 

Bail leads them up empty staircases, narrow between walls of other chambers. Echoes clamour around her, far more than in the Crait base, and Amilyn feels steel and hope invigorate her bones; this is where one of the true fronts opposing the lies. Not just in the general actions but in the cooperation that bounces around the corridors around them, for even through the steel Amilyn can hear words of partnership seeping through the walls. This connection, across species and status, is what fuels life, not the greed of the Empire. “My apologies for taking you this way, through the dregs of the jungle rather than our landing pad. This is much more private.”

“Don’t worry, I am more than happy to be part of the hyperdrive.” Amilyn replies as they reach the summit of the stairway, where Bail pushes a smooth slab forward. They both have to stoop to squeeze through its opening, but inside the meeting chamber is topped only by the neck of the peak, far above even their heads. 

“This is the hyperdrive?” Bail asks as he motions to an empty chair at the semi-circular bar, waiting for a leader to take their place. “Let me guess - powerful but otherworldly?”

“I was thinking more hidden than otherworldly,” Amilyn explains as she takes a seat next to him, finally able to take all of him in. “Although I like that one more.” Bail’s eyes crinkle; she hasn’t seen such mirth from him since their days planning Apprentice Legislature debates over a year ago. “You’re chipper today.”

His smile droops a little, and Amilyn almost wishes she could take the words back. While she is here for an all-too serious reason, he needs the light-heartedness she used to fill his office with. “This is more grave than we like to think it, but I have been in turmoil about this for too long. Just this once, I am going to revel in it.”

“This being the Rebellion?” Amilyn spins her hand to the floors below them, on a wavelength parallel to Bail. At her last word, gravity wins over his smile.

“I should be more formal here - This is the Rebel Alliance to Restore the Republic. It’s been in the making for years, since the Empire was in its infancy even, and we intend to make an official declaration in a few weeks. We were going to earlier, but our move from Crait halted things a little.” Amilyn does not once move her eyes from Bail’s, nodding as she is suddenly aware of what he must have experienced in the two decades under the Empire’s reign. He has an actual Republic to compare it to, and she feels the ghosts of all that he has lost fill the room. “I cannot lie to you, Amilyn, this will be open war.”

“Do you remember what I said to you when Kier died?” She asks, voice little more than a whisper. Her words don’t even make it to the other side of the room. It is the first time she has said Kier’s name since that day.

“You said that ‘love is a rebellion in the most self-sufficient way’. I’ve never forgotten that. It’s what made me realise that you are the future we should be making.”

This shocks Amilyn, even her toes curl. Never has she been so speechless - while she has thought that she may give some hope to Bail, she has never entertained the idea that she is anything more than an individual to the Rebellion. To her, everyone and everything is special, aside from those who cannot see life for the miracle it is. “I know this will be war. A bloody war with loss and probably carnage. But that is already happening, on an accelerating scale, with the Empire in control. This war would be showing everyone, every rundown victim of the Empire, that we care. And that will give them hope and love, and that is revolutionary.”

Bail recedes in his chair a little, clasping his hands under his chin. Despite the magnitude of the moment, his eyes shine, and Amilyn thinks it may be with love. “Once I saw you on Crait, I knew there was no way I could keep you from this any longer. We don’t let those under eighteen join unless they have nowhere else to go, and even then we keep them away from the fighting, so you’ll be one of the youngest amongst us. I don’t want youth to lead you blind without guidance, I’ve already made that mistake once.” 

Amilyn nods, letting Kier’s name go unspoken once more. “I see.”

“So, Amilyn Holdo, I ask you this with clarity: Do you accept my formal offer to join the Rebel Alliance?”

“Yes.” She has no hesitation.

“Good.” Bail drops his shoulders, finally relieved of the weight on them. “You will receive training in flight, self-defence, and intelligence. I know you have some experience in the former, so you won’t need to spend much time there, unless we see potential for you to be blazing on the front lines. However, you are in a unique position.”

Now she is here, having this discussion, Amilyn knows what her future is. It is dialogues like these, forging the path for freedom, with the actions she will carry out to ensure no one is enslaved in a galactic power trip ever again. “My unique position on Coruscant? I thought you had multiple democrats sympathetic to your Alliance. Mon Mothma’s even in hiding for it.”

Bail raises an eyebrow. “Mon Mothma is more than just sympathetic, she is leading this Alliance. We form part of the High Command together. But yes, we do have the sympathy of some of Coruscant’s political circles, yet they provide us with credits and materials. Sometimes information too, but they have to be extremely careful - one step and it all comes crumbling down. You, on the other hand, are less established, and can therefore go undetected. Most of the young adults who join us are orphaned or are skilled pilots; once trained properly, they are more suited to the quick strikes we have been orchestrating on fuel lines or material supplies.”

“You want me to be a spy.” Amilyn has never indulged in the budget holovids that entertain such thrills, but she can’t deny that her mind jumps at the opportunity. “That’s why you didn’t want anyone else here to see me, they don’t know.”

“I want you to spend some time with Alliance Intelligence, yes. The fact that you found us rather than the other way around proves you competent enough for their training. That and you are completely correct with your theory there.” Bail replies, the ghost of his smile returning. “But make no mistake, being an Intelligence Agent is one of the most dangerous positions you could hold in this organisation.”

This is too significant for Amilyn to even consider turning down. She is being flooded by the realities of death every day, from the reports of the victims of fascism to the holograph of her, Kier, and Harp she keeps in her apartment. “If I don’t risk myself in the same way everyone else does, then I may as well stay in my fruitless job on Coruscant.” She announces, before adding a softer: “Even then I doubt Lady Predis would leave me alone.”

“Is she still harassing you?” Bail sits up, alarmed. 

“She has… taken a shine to me. Since you last asked, blue angles still follow me around Coruscant.” Amilyn answers, thinking of Predis as a seductive bruise-crawler leech intent on marking her body, teeth bared and ready to bite. “The night I got the Junior Senator job she knocked on my apartment door to congratulate me.”

“And since then? Our intelligence has placed her all around the Inner Rim, not Coruscant.”

“Your intelligence is correct, but last night she was waiting for me outside the Gatalenta Complex. She… propositioned me.” Amilyn doesn’t mean to shift in her seat; she isn’t usually bothered talking about such matters but something about Lady Predis makes her uncomfortably warm.

“Propositioned you? How- _oh_.” Bail looks just as awkward as her; Amilyn can see him willing his slight blush away. “You didn’t accept, did you?”

“No!” Amilyn’s response is horrified, although only partially at the idea of actually taking Predis up on her offer. A part of her is perturbed at the thought of him discerning the latent desire she conceals.

“Good - we need to leave Predis far alone until the rest of High Command and Intelligence come to an agreement on what to do with her.” Luckily for Amilyn, Bail’s face is entirely relieved and free from suspicion.

“It is not a simple situation.” Amilyn only dares to graze the subject. She knows Bail wants to be as peaceful as possible, but she doesn’t know if he is specifically targeting agents of the Empire for death, especially if they are dark Force wielders the same age as Amilyn. Now she is confronted with it, she can’t even begin to unravel the methods they should use to stop Predis, or what stopping her even means. She finds herself not wanting Predis to be eliminated, not with their unfinished business, and the thought stains her conscience with the most shame she has ever known.

“No, and we’re a long way off resolution yet. Don’t worry about her Amilyn, leave that to the rest of us.” Bail sits up straight again, as if a simple posture change can eradicate the tendrils of Predis in Amilyn’s subconsciousness. He ploughs on, “Your training will be six months. We can cut down flight training since you already have some skill, and if you’re careful you can incorporate weapons and defence training into your usual schedule on Coruscant, disguising it as exercise. There are three branches of Intelligence: Operations, Intentions, and Counter-Intelligence. Intentions is all about analysis of data - I think you’d be suited to that but as I said, you have an advantageous position on Coruscant. Operations oversees field operations, which is where I’d like to place you.”

“Operations is my glove. I assume I won’t be reporting to you?” 

“No, General Vernan is the Chief of Intelligence. I’ll speak to him about a placement for your training, and he’ll assign you to a group. It will be a small one - they don’t get many individual recruits, only transfers from other parts of the military where recruits show potential. They’ll contact you somehow, train you on Coruscant as far as possible so we don’t disrupt your position.”

Amilyn nods again, anticipation rising from her cells up. “And now?”

“I need to know exactly how you found us on Crait.”

“Of course.” Amilyn pulls out her datapad from her shoulder bag deposited under the table, proceeding to walk him through the convoluted methods of barely-legal access codes and legislative loopholes she used to track his trades for months. He listens intently, taking notes on his own datapad to share later. Their conversation stretches from minutes to hours, thanks to the occasional tangent that comes with generally conversing with Amliyn, let alone with her as an old friend.

Eventually Bail’s comm unit beeps, a shrill sound that pierces their ears and demands attention. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to leave this here Amilyn. Thank you, for your work and your words.”

“I could say the same to you,” Amilyn returns, her heart full after spending the day with him. When she grieved for Kier she grieved for Bail too, and she dives headfirst into her appreciation in these last few minutes with him. “You’re not going to ignore me on Coruscant all the time now, are you?”

“I can’t make any promises. We’re releasing our declaration of rebellion soon, and my signature is certainly going to be on there. I don’t want to draw any suspicion to you.” Bail replies. He falters slightly, almost slumping back before he pulls her into an embrace. “I don’t want to hold you back.”

Amilyn squeezes him tight, wrapping her long fingers around his shoulders. The energy stringing the galaxy together flows through her as well as through him, she feels, their souls resonating on the same plane. “You won’t, not now.”

They pull away. “We’ll be in touch, Amilyn. May the Force be with you.”

“May the Force be with you.” Amilyn hoists her bag over her shoulder, and gives Bail a final parting wave before she slips out the same hidden doorway she entered from. Without Bail the stairway seems darker than before, but now resolution seeps from her as well as into her. It is just the start of a long fight, yet Amilyn knows that she is on the winning side. They have something the Empire does not: love.

* * *

Amilyn does not have to wait even a day for an encrypted message to light up her datapad. She doesn’t take long to crack the code - which is the first test, she suspects - and it leads her to an alley thirty levels below the Senate District - low enough to be away from immediate prying eyes, high enough to still have the excuse of gathering data on political issues. The message didn’t provide anything aside from the address, time, and a single word: orlatz. Amilyn’s not sure what it means, but one weeknight after work she arrives at a nondescript door, prepared for all possibilities. 

At the exact time specified in the message - 1950:53 - a slot opens in the door at her head height. Amilyn peers in, but black curtains shroud the room within, blocking any view of anything to note. A blank droid voice emanates from within, “Name and intentions?”

A mixture of nervousness and excitement swirls throughout Amillyn, but resolve wins other both. From now on, she can’t make any mistakes, starting with parading her real name around for everyone in this alleyway to hear. Even her signature multicoloured hair is tucked up safely in a bun under a cap, angled down to shadow her face. Her voice is low when she replies, “Orlatz.”

The snapping shut of the slot is her only answer. For a moment, all Amilyn can do is wait, then a grating noise from inside the door echoes in her chest. Finally, the door swings open, revealing a simple service droid. It motions for her to step inside with one tiny mechanical hand, and Amilyn obeys, feeling the slight gust from the metal door clicking shut behind her. The curtains before her twitch, and two humanoids step out from between them. Amilyn simply watches them, waiting. Besides one of them being a Mirialan - one heavily tattooed, likely extremely accomplished - there is nothing significant about either of them. If she has ever seen either of them before, Amilyn doesn’t remember them.

“You are Holdo?” The human asks, their voice cutting the silent air.

“Depends who is asking.” She replies, unwilling to give every aspect of herself over now. Despite the desire to trust them - what Mirialan supports the Empire? - the memory of Bail so concerned for her in this autocracy pauses her.

“That’s a good attitude to have.” The Mirialan replies, and Amilyn wishes she has something to call them by besides their race names. “From now on, if anyone in Alliance Intelligence asks, you are Comet.”

Amilyn nods, business-like. “Which of the two of you are Orlatz?”

“We both are,” Her partner adds. “To give an individual an exclusive codename is almost as identifiable as using their real name.”

“We will be training you for the next six months,” The first continues, her deep lips a forest green in this dim light, “Your schedule will change every week - if you can’t memorise it at the end of every session then your training will suffer. I will head weapons and martial arts training, while Orlatz will focus on your piloting skills.” 

The other Orlatz - a concept that threatens Amilyn’s mental equilibrium - recommences, their smooth voice gracefully accepting the first’s flow, “We will do this almost all on Coruscant, until terrain changes require us to go elsewhere. You have a ship here, do you not?”

“Yes,” Amilyn replies, “An R22 A-Wing prototype, with all of its weapons stripped. The hyperdrive is still in commission.”

“We can incorporate that into your operations training. Ship maintenance will be covered as well, and we expect you to be able to retrofit your A-Wing before you become an Intelligence Agent in full.”

“Okay,” Amilyn says, and she means it. She hasn’t been in formal education for over a year now but with all the planets and stars in the galaxy orbiting her brain she has more than a basic grasp of physics to kickstart her engineering abilities. This is going to be a demanding few months, regardless, and after eighteen years of mostly sitting by, she can’t wait to begin. “So, when do we get started?”

* * *

Amilyn's training is nothing short of brutal. Physically, she is pushed to her limits, becoming intimate with mixed martial arts and the bruises they imprint, as well as the sharp buzz of every blaster from pistols to long-range snipers. The training in the early hours of the morning or the late hours of the night forces her brain to be sharp no matter the condition of her body. She still refuses to give up her meditation and even skyfaring, leaving tiredness behind as solely a concept. Even her lunch breaks are full with intelligence gathering and memorisation. 

The open deceleration of rebellion hinders far more than it helps. With Bail Organa's signature on the document, and a few others from the Senate, stormtroopers blast their way through the Senate District, terrorising those who remain as they ransack their offices. Amilyn's prepared for this, with both a plan and honed improvisation skills, so she can talk herself out of any trap they attempt to lie for her. None come, even when their searches reveal nothing in the long-cleaned out offices of 'traitors'. Amilyn thinks she sees Lady Predis with her father, Lord - Darth - Vader overseeing the carnage the stormtroopers make out of the Senate. She feels the rage sparking from them from across an arching skyway, and knows no wicked fascination can save her from this mood. Instead she turns to her fellow Gatalentan politicians, and hides in their silence while she forces her mind on all the ways she can incapacitate someone should they get too close.

While she sneaks her way closer to becoming a full Rebel Intelligence agent each day, Amilyn focuses her career on creating Gatalentan links throughout the galaxy. With the anti-Rebel crackdown on Coruscant, it is not yet safe for her to target Imperial agents in the heart of their rule, especially when better-placed agents aboard capital ships can gather targets. Still, she passes viable gossip along to the Orlatzes while she organises cultural and educational 'exchanges' between Gatalenta and other Inner Rim systems. Officially, she is helping those disadvantaged to find schooling and employment - she even spins it as advantageous to the Empire's scientific divisions - but unofficially she is gaining confidential knowledge of those in power in potential Rebel worlds. For everyone's safety she doesn't know if and where Rebel cells are, but the Orlatzes are satisfied with her reports on Imperial activities and possible sympathisers in the systems when she visits. They give away nothing aside from what is imperative for her to know about Alliance Intelligence as a whole, but from Amilyn can discern they need every scrap they can get.

As promised, Amilyn retrofits her A-Wing into its own unique ship, featuring a second engine, jammers, and laser cannons, with no sacrifice on its speed and stealth. She finishes it a month before she completes her training, and she actually manages to visibly impress her trainers - a rarity as an honest person on Coruscant. So when she finally completes the ardour of her training, she is confident piloting her little starfighter, even if she still mentally balks about shooting down a live target. Intelligence is not necessarily about assassinations - or 'pacifying' people, as the Orletzes call it - but it's a possibility, and a reality Amilyn knows she has to be at peace with. As many times as she has fired a blaster, she hasn't seen the light die in someone's eyes and known it's not a simulation. It is not a situation she is looking forward to.

Luckily for Amilyn, her first cell she integrates with is on Coruscant, where any killings are unlikely. With so many high-profile targets to follow, they need them alive to keep the flow of information open. To many she is Comet, a puzzle at first but a brighter spark than most. Her years of practice inflame her chameleon spirit, so she dances around the Coruscant political circuit with ease to funnel back systems of interest to the Empire, allowing a rebel cell to retreat to safety or to launch a devastating strike. Her case officer is even eager to lend her to cells in systems where she travels for exchange program, showing her off as his most promising young agent.

With the power of the Imperial Senate weakening thanks to the peak in military control prompted by the Rebel Declaration, Amilyn's moral compass points her focus to her exchange programs. While they do provide cover for her rebel activities, she can only hope she is genuinely making a difference in the poorests' lives. She herds them from slipping into slavery to a sheltered life on Gatalenta, where they can work and live in relative harmony. Coincidentally, Amilyn wrangles a trip to Gatalenta on her nineteenth birthday. She acknowledges her parents' ceremonious message with the same swipe she uses for the rest of the morning mail, but when Bail Organa surprises her in her solitary hut as the sun sets, she almost cries with shock and joy. So many - too many - of her Intelligence colleagues border on cold-hearted, capable of justifying murder and collateral damage that upheaves innocents' lives, so when she can finally talk with a like-minded, genuinely kind soul again relief settles through her. They cannot recount much of their recent lives, their work classified even to each other, but at least they don't spend their few hours quantifying the lives and deaths of everyone around them.

The first time Amilyn takes a life, she aims a blaster at a man's heart and pulls the trigger. She's not acting as Amilyn Holdo, but as Comet, even though she doesn't see the difference. She wants to, wants to beg and scream excuses, but as she looks past her own deadly-still hands to the little Twi'lek girl she is protecting, she has no doubt that she has made the right choice. Her instincts kick-start her body before her mind catches up - a lag that she vows to redirect, lest it kill her - and she executes protocol for her situation. She is on Jakku, supposedly scouting the viability for another Gatalenta-Coruscant exchange, when in reality she is attempting to find the purpose of the observatory the Emperor has commissioned. The tendrils of the Empire refuse to spare even this desert rock, devoid of the hope of oceans, with its officers relishing in their orders to intimidate the locals. As if they needed any more period of the Empire manifesting the worst of humanity, one blue-robed officer tried to manipulate the Twi'lek girl into slavery where no one else could see, and when Amilyn stepped in, the idea of standing by while a precious life gets chained forever unbearable, the officer was quick to draw his own weapons. But Amilyn is quicker, and she shoots before her hard work is whisked away with the sand. His body is unceremoniously dumped behind a desolate dune by Amilyn while she asks for a promise from the girl to never mention this again. Satisfied with the girl's agreement, Amilyn returns to her work, hinting to another officer she finds in a bar that his colleague is busy bartering for ships and won't return for a while, fashioning a safety net for herself. She returns to her case officer sun-darkened and roughly-cut, but with some intelligence on the observatory. It's not much, but according to many the Emperor himself demanded the specific site, and visited it three decades previously, and it's enough to catch her superior's attention. Dismissed soon after, Amilyn spends her refractory period weeping not for the life that she took, but for the ease with which she did it. For all her body is changing - becoming leaner, stronger - she is grateful for her still-soft heart. In the clutches of night, when her thoughts run most free, she wonders if Lady Predis ever felt like this, and if she did, how it changed.

The second time she takes a life, it is not even three full weeks after the first. She is undercover in the colonies, not as Holdo but as a potential buyer in a back alley of Castell, attempting to extract cut rate materials from a greedy Imperial Officer. He’s as nameless as the rest of them, a bland face Amilyn can’t wait to forget. Ignoring the dubious dealings surrounding her in this red-brick alley, Amilyn leans towards the officer, arms splayed slightly open.

“Is that all you have?” Amilyn asks him, wide-eyed with faux-innocence. His offer is not satisfactory for her customer front, while his information is not satisfactory for her true purpose. Many reliable sources of all types of materials are drying up, their trades moving elsewhere in the Empire. The rebellion could suffer if they don’t find exactly where they’re going and who is involved. “I can’t find a lot these days.”

“I can’t either. It’s all going elsewhere.” Behind his slender shoulders, Amilyn watches a man roughly shove another figure down the alleyway. Their shouting cuts the silence of the officer’s patience, and he squints at her, recognising that he no longer has her full attention.

The figures disappear into the murk of the streets, and the officer’s face swims back into Amilyn’s focus. He’s watching her too intently for Amilyn’s intention of a casual trade, his furrowed brow not mirroring her attempt at easing her body back to her relaxed slouch against a wall. “I’ve been finding that too. Do you know where? I really need this durasteel.”

He watches her a few seconds more, likely imagining himself a hawk circling a potential meal, Amilyn privately thinks, before he answers, “No.” And then, “Why?”

“Please,” Amilyn shifts, aware that this situation is sliding towards toxic. She leans in closer, less than a half-metre between them now, and lowers her voice as she replies, “I thought it was common courtesy not to ask. You don’t know what I’m doing with the durasteel, I don’t know who your superiors are and how many  _ rules  _ you’re breaking just talking to me about this.” 

Her knife-point tone wraps around his mind, the threat settling his suspicions. The costernation falls from his brow as his cheeks tighten into a corrupted smile now that he believes her to be as immoral as him. He may be too insignificant to the Empire to know what they are doing with so much steel, but she’s not done yet; he could have a whole web of possible contacts the rebellion doesn’t know about.

“So, wh-”

“Master, please!” A desperate shout echoes around the alley, slicing Amilyn’s sentence in half. She whirls around, shadows rebounding off the high walls as she sees a tall individual adorned in the riches of Castells jerk on a set of chains. Attached on the other end is a slave, dressed in rags and welts as they cry for their mistreatment. Amilyn’s pulse rarely fluctuates, a product of her personal serenity she has built throughout her life, but if it were to, it would be roaring now, demanding she take action. She is here to fight injustice, after all.

So when they pass, Amilyn’s actions are automatic. She forgets that she should not be Holdo or Comet, that she should be a mysterious buyer of the Empire’s durasteel, and drives her hand out to halt the wealthy slave owner in his tracks. 

“Don’t you think that you should be treating them better than that?” She demands, all straight-backed Amilyn Holdo. As she blazes defiantly at the owner, who is startled by a complete stranger he can see no signs of class upon, the image of the Imperial Officer imprints itself in her peripheral vision. He’s not in uniform, but with the hatred charging his expression her may as well be. Backing down immediately, Amilyn feels her heart ache for this poor slave, and for what she’s about to say. “You don’t want them to break, after all. Getting a new one is such a hassle.”

The alley is silent save for the whimperings of the slave Amilyn’s chest cries for. Electricity crackles, igniting reactions in the air until all the oxygen is used up and Amilyn is running on empty. Shooting her one disgusted look, the slave owner drives himself and his unwilling companion past them, too befuddled by such a challenge to respond. They vanish from sight quickly, leaving Amilyn with the fractured pieces of a facade while her bones rattle in her skin. 

“What do you really want?” The officer asks, tone cold and lips curling. 

Such a man doesn’t intimidate Amilyn. “I told you what I want. The durasteel, cheap.” His eyes narrow, and Amilyn knows she has to do something drastic, something unexpected. She leans into him, closer than before, and pitches her voice at a sultry whisper. “This is not the place. Why don’t we go somewhere more quiet so we can…  _ talk  _ about this.” 

His breath, a foul wave of cruelty, hitches as she drags long finger across his shirt, fingering his chest. This buyer she is, is desperate, having exhausted all other durasteel sources from the Inner Rim to the Core Worlds. The officer knows this, and Amilyn knows men like him. 

“Okay,” He huffs out, not completely under her spell but still swayed by her suggestiveness. “I’ve got a place not far from here.” 

Amilyn smiles, a thin-lipped curl far from her usual beam. “Well, what are we waiting for?” 

He grabs her wrist and turns, leading the way down the street. The grip of his grubby fingers is punishing, and Amilyn can feel his distrust in every capillary he tears. It’s not an ideal position, but it’s enough to give Amilyn an extra two minutes to analyse all her options, however few they are. While he is busy rummaging in his pockets so he can unlock his door, Amilyn slips her free left hand into her top, and sends a covert message to her handler, alerting them of the possibility that her pretense is being discovered. She doubts she will need extraction - independence is key in Rebel Intelligence, and she can easily hop her way around the planet until she can safely return to the unused hanger where she stores her A-Wing - but now she has another option should he bear down the might of the Empire on her. Everyone has a limit, but her body resonates with the otherworldly certainty that her career, or her life, does not end here, in this dingy apartment of an irrelevant lackey.

Once inside, he establishes himself between her and the exit, inconsequential words leaking from his mouth. Amilyn reads his lips, stores the information, but cares more about the implant in her ear that crackles into life with a cool montone of five words sent by her handler: “Make sure he forgets you.”

Amilyn smiles at him, pulling him closer while he issues the buyer challenges she can’t meet. Instead of proving her loyalty to the Empire, Amilyn slithers her free hand beneath her shirt, using the cover of their closeness to disguise the pill she slides out from its packet underneath her breastband. Her toolkit of various drugs isn’t one she uses often, preferring the pure manipulation of words and appearances to create a cleaner path, one of lesser harm, to her goal. Yet that didn’t work this time, and she needs to salvage this operation all she can, thus when he starts spitting in her face she seizes her concealed advantage. Between two savage clatters of teeth she thrusts the violet pill in, forcing his mouth closed using her hand and his surprise. He doesn’t even manage to hold his grip on her right hand, now sorely bruised, and she easily shakes it off to push him against the smear of his apartment wall. His struggle is pitiful - Amilyn understands now why he isn’t trusted with information she seeks, and Amilyn watches as he swallows the capsule she forced down his throat. Immediately his eyes droop and his whirling arms falter, the drug rushing around his system, striking like thousands of miniature Rebel Intelligence agents.

She leaves him slumped on the floor while she searches his apartment. Now that Amilyn is not looking at the world through the diffracted light of the front of the buyer, her skills can shine through even this murky mess. It’s not a failure, she thinks, not yet as she finds nothing that can be used to restrain the officer should he wake up from the simple sleeping pill she administered. Everything about this apartment is decaying; even his bedsheets are too frayed to be used as ropes. He should not return to consciousness soon, yet a sense of urgency descends upon Amilyn, further emboldening her rather than worrying her.

Time passes with clarity, a clear river sluicing with each of her steps; Amilyn’s internal chronopiece is second to none. She knows exactly how many minutes she spends on the officer’s datapad - seven point two - before she exhausts the data it stores. It isn’t a lot, only confirmation of what they already know, and as the screen turns black it reflects the room and the hallway behind her. The empty hallway. 

Amilyn launches herself backwards off the desk chair as a hammer hand crushes the desk in front of her. Her swiftness maneuvers her advantage as she lands a flurry of blows to the officer’s body, just as she would a training dummy. Rising to parry her next punch, the officer groans at the impact. He still seizes the chance to strike her at her head, but his strike never lands, however, for Amilyn is too graceful to be stopped by a simple parry. She ducks and he topples forward, his momentum and ill-posture propelling him fair more than he should. Sweat drips down into her hair, mingling while he panics, breaths coming quick and fast as his lips lose their snarl. Amilyn’s timing is impeccable as she rises and strikes him in the solar plexus in between his rattling exhales. She pummels him relentlessly, too rapid-fire for him to even think about recovering. Amilyn is but a blur while self-preservation pilots her; he sinks to his knees, and she lands one final kick to his head, knocking him out. The only trace of life is the trickle of blood limping from his nose.

Panting heavily, Amilyn simply watches him, body still prepared for danger. Her hands sing with pain, and later, as the too-bright room consolidates back into its usual almost-black, with regret too. The fact that she is capable of such acute personal violence as well as directing a laser to end a life, the fact that it is all so second-nature to her now, horrifies her. For one terribly long minute, the rest of the galaxy pales to this shabby room and fuschia-haired woman, young in her years but old in her soul. Eventually she takes a deep breath, remembers the job she has to do, and sends another message to her handlers: “Busted vacc suit.” It means her cover is irretrievable. With her relative safety, she can wait for those of clearer mind to direct her; the alleviation of the immense responsibility she drags with her is a rare respite she welcomes for the first time in her life.

The reply from her handler is almost instantaneous, the weight lifted for just a split second. “He has seen your face. Pacify him.” Says the even tone in her ear, sounding like a perverted version of herself. Amilyn understands the logic - being on a colony world, adjacent to both the Core Worlds and the Inner Rim, means that he’s likely to recognise her at some unspecified, unrealised point in time. So she arranges a chaos in the apartment, wiping every trace of her as she goes, leaving not even a molecular print of her behind. A half-complete message to a nearby friend and missing possessions is enough to frame this as a robbery gone wrong, Amilyn deems while she allows her body to regain a sense of balance for what she is about to do. When she can no longer delay, she takes her Defender-5 blaster, clicks it from its stun to lethal setting, and shoots the officer in the head with a sick feeling in her stomach. Pocketing the weapon of her idealistic homeworld, she slips out of the apartment, sending a prayer of forgiveness to the Force and to the piece of herself she relinquished when she pulled the trigger. It’s the first and last time she vomits after killing someone.

Her journey back to debriefing is silent. Her case officer is less so, teetering on the edge of enraged. He likely would be over the cliff if it had turned out that her target was more useful. No adrenaline surges through her now, no waterfalls crashing through her while he berates her for thinking that she can do anything twice - just because she beat the odds and saved a slave last time doesn’t mean she can do it again: she is a an Intelligence agent, whose only reliance is her own flexibility. Amilyn has always thought of herself as open-minded, but her moral compass invariably points due north, and the weight of her recent boldness cuts new lines into her face. Even after the warnings from Bail in her time in the Apprentice Legislature she managed to find subtle, but direct ways to help those she saw suffering, however now she has to adopt the same chill of her colleagues that repulses her if she is to help the galaxy. It sends her moral compass spinning wildly, this idea that she is going to be outright ignoring those who need her most. Bail was right, Amilyn thinks as her heart wails when it learns its lesson in this failure, conflict is a long and arduous process, and now she truly understands why. Caution, for it must come with conflict if they are going to win, is more than just ensuring her words aren’t overheard by the wrong people, it’s fully becoming who she makes up - morals and views on slavery included. That’s who Comet is. Her case officer knows she can do better. Amilyn has a heavy heart as she realises how far she has to immerse herself into different lives to be the agent everyone already thinks she is. She will have to commit to more than the surface illusions she has been using so far. It's unfortunate, now that she knows herself more intimately than anyone ever will. 

* * *

Amilyn spends week after week bouncing from Coruscant to rebel cell and back again. With Coruscant now crumbling, senators disappearing left and right as martial law is favoured in more and more systems, she knows she will have to leave permanently soon. Stormtroopers patrol everywhere, and she sees Lady Predis more often than not, hovering around the offices of fallen worlds, fingers always twitching around the buttons of her twin lightsabers. When Amilyn doesn’t see her in person, she sees her in the Holonet propaganda, celebrating ‘victory’ over a planet she has razed, fire and gore framing her ascension. Her grin now is utterly bloodcurdling; it has always stirred both repulsion and desire in Amilyn, but now Amilyn glimpses the glee behind it. Predis, for all her silk words she adorns Amilyn with, has the taste of a power surge after ripping the life from another’s body, and while Amilyn becomes more familiar with the act of taking a life, she never revels in the thrum of her body after the fact. She remembers why she does it, may even meditate upon it in her next session, but never bathes in blood the way Predis does. For all that it should horrify her, it fascinates her too. She wants to know how someone can do that, why they think the end is life’s most powerful point - Amilyn can’t fathom not being rejuvenated by the vivacity of the galaxy. Some short-lived whispers say it’s the Dark Side of the Force at work, and while Amilyn is inclined to agree, she also wonders if its grip is as mighty as they say.

Her twentieth birthday comes and goes. With the rebellion more of a hulking machine than a few rebel threads darned together, Amilyn has no time to celebrate. Her spiritual fuel arrives in the form of electronic messages, all sent by her parents, Harp, and Bail. She’s on a mission when it passes, undercover tailing a target on Zeltros, so she doesn’t even acknowledge its passing until her return to Coruscant a week later - Comet has no birthday, after all. 

Yet when she powers up her data pad upon her return to her apartment, more than just birthday messages is waiting. At the top of her inbox sits an encrypted message, similar to the one she received two years ago as her invite to Rebel Intelligence. As Amilyn works on deducing the cypher, she feels far more than two years older than when she first joined, and sends a message to Bail to arrange a meeting. Rebel Intelligence life can be harrowing, especially when personal contact with another sympathetic creature is restricted either by code names or the veil of unfamiliarity that comes with the odd night in a bar, keeping the hours at bay before she has to pretend again.

The code takes most of Amilyn’s evening to understand, and when she is finally sure of what she is reading she knows why. She can’t discern the technological origin of the message, at least not without more advanced equipment than she both does not own or have the skill to use, but Amilyn can understand that her datapad is now on a highly selective, secret channel, with messages directly from General Vernan, chief of Rebel Intelligence. He oversees nine branches of the organisation, of which Amilyn is just an individual in one - Systems Operations. Her natural curiosity for the world is restrained by caution, for she can’t ever be sure that messages like these aren’t traps laid by the Empire, but as she reads its contents her body sings in agreement with the galaxy - this is real. General Vernan does want to meet her at the coordinates he provides (which Amilyn assumes lead to Operations HQ, where the highest priority cases are handled). Aside from the time and date of the meeting, his only instructions are those of stealth. Much like when Bail requested his meeting with Amilyn on Yavin IV, Vernan does not want anyone else to know she is there. 

That night, when Amilyn swirls as high in the Gatalentan skyfaring room as she can, surrounded by peeling paint and smoke stains their office can no longer afford to repair, she dances away her ill feelings. Finally elation wings her feet as they knot one scarf and unfurl another, their vibrant colours swirling into the future Amilyn now can’t wait to have. Whatever is before her, be it a drop of twenty metres or the vast unknowns of space, the promises of Vernan and Bail’s meetings firmly elated her spirits. They don’t wind back to the earth the same way Amilyn does at the end of her session.

That is, until, she steps out of the changing room and into Lady Predis. Amilyn’s surprised she couldn’t feel Predis’ dark aura from inside, and is perhaps a little proud of herself when she thinks of her own light energy as a shield. 

Still, light energy does not lock Lady Predis’ lips, and her glossy voice strips Amilyn’s attention away from anything else. “Ms Holdo.”

Even from those two words the veiled woman captures Amilyn’s body heat, simmering the air between them. “Lady Predis.” Amilyn responds, still toneless, still not betraying the thrum of her pulse when she looks down to Predis, the pair still clutched together in the doorway.

“I came to say goodbye.” She continues, her words reflecting the complete opposite of the body. For all she is talking of parting, Amilyn is still close enough to her to learn than she too, emanates body heat, rather than living on the cold blood many speculate she possesses. “My time on Coruscant is over; I am needed elsewhere in the Empire.” 

Amilyn opens her mouth, hyper-aware of the pulse of hot blood in her lips. “Mine too, I believe. Perhaps we will see each other again. Like stardust.” She doesn’t know what possesses her to say it, no matter how high alert she may be around Predis her mouth still runs ahead of her mind like she is sixteen again. Predis doesn’t care for her vague metaphors that border on romantic if she lets them; there are certainly not the dust of the same star from the infancy of the universe, even Amilyn doesn’t believe that. 

Yet Predis must agree on some level that they have a connection, albeit one of her own making, for she replies, “We will see each other again. I know it.”

“You know it?” Amilyn raises one eyebrow, their smouldering ties allowing her to question Predis without devastating consequence.

“I do.” Predis juts her head upwards, daring Amilyn to challenge her, daring Amilyn to challenge her own restraints.

Short, hot breaths pass before Amilyn declines the bait. “I think I know it too.” It’s not a lie, or a fantasy bourne from the chemical reactions sparking between them. Whatever energy Predis possesses, dark or not, it matches Amilyn’s, a complementary ecosystem in itself, and it has been lying dormant in them since the met. Amilyn skims over it, however, deeming it irresponsible hedonism to indulge in. This is not the love of life she waxes poetic about, not the relationship that fuels the galaxy. If anything, she senses it has too much power, an exothermic bond waiting for the conditions to destroy. Perhaps that is what drew Predis to her in the first place.

“Okay.” Predis breathes out, her shoulders like a queen’s, despite the disappointment Amilyn is sure she feels. She takes a step back, finally giving Amilyn room to pass, and more importantly, to breathe. “I’ll see you when we - or the Force - deem it so.”

Comet could laugh at the idea of being rattled by a Sith’s mention of the exiled Force. Amilyn doesn’t, simply painting on an airy smile as she passes, bundling her bag up in her bare arms so she doesn’t touch Predis. Whatever that would bring, everything in her knows that the time to confront that is not now, not in the changing rooms of the Gatalenta Senatorial Complex. She doesn’t want to obliterate half of Coruscant with her when she leaves. 

“I assume so. Long live the Empire.” Is Amilyn’s sole reply, nerves on fire with pent-up energy, needing to get out of there as quickly as possible before a stray electron causes an implosion. She strides out, leaving behind the possibility - or probability - of unavoidable devastation rather than the end of life as they know it.

* * *

Amilyn’s journey to General Vernan is uneventful, as any Intelligence agent’s journey should be. The coordinates lead her to the Londor system, an unremarkable section of space in the Mid Rim, and when she sails out of hyperspace she can see why. A sleek capital ship hangs suspended in space, gently orbiting the planet Londor. It is like no cruiser she has seen in Imperial use before, instead, Amilyn identifies its oval hull and numerous bumps as a likely Mon Calamari design. Her ship safely cloaked, she pilots her A-Wing smoothly into a rear docking bay as per Vernan’s instructions.

Inside no crew greet Amilyn; no one rushes for her identification. Only a singular man stands before her, his head high as she approaches him. Despite her connection to Bail, Amilyn has met few people of substantial power in the Rebellion, but his broad shoulders and formal expression leave her sure she is meeting one now.

“Agent Comet?” He asks, although he likely already knows the answer.

“Yes,” Amilyn replies, her own spine firm. “General Vernan, I presume?”

“Come with me.” He commands, uninterested in pleasantries as he turns his back and marches to the end of the hangar. Amilyn follows, her vivacious orange trousers flapping around her legs as they stride is silence. 

Their winding walk is short, one turn after another in narrow corridors until she is suddenly presented with an office. Vernan motions for her to sit across from him while she tucks away her mental map of the ship she has seen so far.

He proceeds with business, as austere as the undecorated walls around them. “Welcome to Operations HQ. Needless to say, anything discussed here will not go further than this room.”

“Of course.” Amilyn nods, then remembers her own formality usually pushed far from her skin. “Sir.”

Whatever his initial impression of her, Vernan gives away nothing. “Our coordinate office runs from this ship. where case officers handle usually lone operatives, or occasionally in pairs. It’s safer to have our best operatives working apart.” Perfectly still in her chair, Amilyn responds with nothing besides her intent gaze. She understands his logic, has worked with conceited coordinate agents who use systems operations agents like they are tools rather than people before. It is not an unfamiliar attitude, but not a likeable one either. “But that’s not enough for some missions. Deep cover is necessary, and we are spread thin. Our foster agents - those who provide safe housing and travel for agents whose cover has been blown - are spread even thinner. I’d like to trial a larger group of five, who can provide the elite support for another when foster and systems operations can’t.” 

Amilyn’s mind whirs faster, manifesting and analysing all branches of this idea. “I see.”

“I’m offering you a place in this coordinate team.”

Amilyn is far from surprised - this was always the likeliest branch Vernan’s trunk was going to extend, coordinate is the dream office for many systems operations agents - but she has to admit that reservation grips her. While she used to jump headfirst into offerings, vigilance is ingrained into her now. She has to make the right decision - will this save more lives? Will  _ she  _ be capable of saving more lives with this squad?

Her lips part like a stalling engine, forming her words carefully. “Why did you pick me?” 

Vernan’s right eyebrow lifts in an involuntary twitch: Amliyn is surprising him. “Your reports show abstract thinking. It’s a dangerous mindset but you almost always get results. It’s our best antidote to how the Empire plans. In all my time observing you, you do not betray your thinking, either, and if you are rattled you don’t let it show. Coordinate agents cannot afford to be scared.”

“I think I get scared,” Amliyn interrupts, her impulse to show herself as a living being more important than her promotion, “But it is just another type of energy. My transformer is fully employed.”

Across from her, Vernan’s face tightens as he sets his jaw. Amilyn suspects he likes Comet more than he likes her. “Regardless, you won’t destabalise a team. You can compliment it well, even. And, just as importantly, you are already familiar with frequently moving around the galaxy. I don’t believe that the trials of deep cover and relative isolation will adversely affect you.”

His last sentence is his most confronting. Amilyn is used to solitary, thrives in it even, her whole being a product of a girl left adrift by her peers. They thought her lust for adventure strange, rejected her rejection of Gatalentan culture, and now in the Rebellion she is an agent rather than a person, always two steps back from the real camaraderie she sees in the Alliance Fleet. Her meditation and her stars keep her grounded, while shimmering life force of those around her motivates her. It’s a situation she can easily apply in a coordinates group.

“Okay.” She finally answers, “What exactly would you want me to do?”

Pulled from his surveying of her, Vernan almost smiles. “First we’ll test you with the other four prospective agents before we assign you a case. It’s similar work to your current role, except with much higher ranking and higher priority targets. Usually we’d deploy agents in cell networks that are already active, but you will also be entrusted with flushing out the traitors in untrustworthy cells. We don’t expect you to be master assassins or have much contact with Passive Operations, in fact, we want to keep your existence as quiet as possible, so long-term undercover missions are more likely than open combat.”

“I assume I will resign from my official Coruscant post.” Not even a sliver of disappointment runs through Amilyn at the thought. She hasn’t believed anything she has done in the Senate has made a difference since her first months, and its convenience for her cover is waning.

“Yes, you will need to disappear as quickly and realistically as possible. Now, I have to tell you before you accept, in the honour of full disclosure, that by Alliance code you are legally required to take leave after every case and we will not deploy you on more than twenty missions. As such, your teammates will consistently change. The chance of surviving twenty missions without capture is twenty-three percent.”

Amilyn is unfazed, her body as still as always. Death is another part of life, and an experience she will not shy away from when she knows it is her time. “Alright.” She says simply, her intent gaze now a cool one. “I accept your offer.”

* * *

Everything moves very quickly after that, like Amilyn had signed her life away when she left General Vernan’s office. She lets herself be swept up in it, from the goodbye lunch with her remaining Coruscant colleagues to the depositing of the three boxes of her possessions she buries in her parents’ garden on Gatalenta while they are out. Testing, as it turns out, involves abandoning Amilyn on the shore of a coastal lake on Dathomir, her and her four squadmates the only sentient species on the continent. Masodori, the de facto leader of the group as he has the most experience with ten coordinate missions completed, informs them that they are to use anything and everything they can find to leave this planet and return to Operations HQ within a month, where their first assignment depends on their proof of unity.

The basics of survival are not difficult, with the fresh rivers running across their plains and the edible flora that sprouts from them. Neither is navigation a challenge; Amilyn’s intimate knowledge of the stars guides them to where they wish to go, although Dathomir is mostly unmapped, with no settlement in sight. Yet they are all professionals, and they resolve their rising tension on the second day by splitting up and assigning roles, each strength complimenting another’s weakness. Their threads pull together, especially so when their migration leads them to a Rancor herd. None of them have encountered wild Rancors or those who have grown to their size - mighty creatures whose talons alone are longer than Amilyn’s body. 

Remarkably, not a single one of them panics, and as they retreat to avoid becoming prey Amilyn spies remnants of Old Republic technology dragging behind them, including shells of crashed ships. That night, fire crackling in the darkness, they devise a plan to secure the technology and drive away the Rancor herd. Amilyn assists her squadmate Faul, a former Killian Ranger, in assembling a particle shield device from the carcass of a blaster and Faul’s shield gauntlet, and, as outlandish as it is, she feels jolts of excitement that cannot be entirely the fault of the occasional electric shock. She volunteers for first watch, watching over her peers while they sleep, basking in the peaceful dark.

Amilyn wakes before dawn, still refreshed despite the little hours of sleep. Their actions are swift; being one of the most flexible of her crew, Amilyn dives in and out of the Rancor herd while they remain unconscious, unaware of her thievery. While they can’t drag the whole pieces of ships back to their camp, the team can provoke the Rancor into alertness as Amilyn activates their shield, protecting their prize. Within the hour, the Rancor herd’s migration is prompted and they are raging far in the desert to Amilyn’s east, while her squad are eagerly analysing the ancient Republic Consular ships they retrieved. Despite their poor condition, reigniting the engines and hyperdrives are easy with Masodori’s engineering background (they don’t discuss much, not even their real names, but every possibly useful detail about themselves is dissected by the crew - it’s the most vulnerable Amilyn has felt for a long time). The real trial is ensuring that their retrofitted ship will hold together upon exiting Dathomir’s atmosphere. They don’t leave until everyone is in agreement that the ship is safe, with Amilyn being the last one to deem it so, her senses finally satisfied that no invisible hairline crack will blast apart and thrust them into the vacuum of space. Removing her hand from its hull, her humming connection to the dormant ship silenced, she smiles, signalling for them to pile in and return to restoring the galaxy to freedom.

* * *

With Vernan satisfied with their timely arrival at Operations HQ, Amilyn is granted a week’s leave before her first coordinates mission. So she finally attends her meeting with Bail, as an overdue visit to the white peaks of Alderaan. Sitting upon a private balcony at the back of Aldera Palace, her snow-white hair blowing in the breeze while she sips on Alderaanian tea, her delicate teacup matching Bail’s opposite her. 

“Now you’re no longer remaining on Coruscant, where are you living?” Bail asks, face warm with love and the afternoon sun.

“I’ll orbit.” Amilyn answers, dodging the question with sips of herbal tea.

“You’ve moved up in the world.” Bail remarks, a cheeky smile lighting him up.

Amilyn plays her usual self. “Because I’ve got enough credits to travel?”

“No, because the fact that what you’re working on now is so classified you can’t say it’s classified.” Bail states with confidence. At Amilyn’s returning stare, he chuckles. “I’ve been behind the order of ‘don’t tell anyone’ enough times to know how to play the game. Don’t worry, I’m not going to pry.”

Amilyn laughs with him, the chuckle sliding easily from her throat in their lighter-than-air atmosphere. “I remember all the difficult questions I bombarded you with in the Apprentice Legislature. It’s where I learnt all my best wordplay.”

Bail chuckles again, yet this time it fades easier like the chill of shade snatches it away. As he stirs his half-empty cup, Amilyn watches his gaze slip from hers to the whirling drink. “Amilyn,” He begins, tongue tripping over the syllables like he both doesn't want to say this and wants it over quickly. “Lady Predis hasn’t been making any trouble for you now, has she? Not since she said goodbye?” He looks up, yearning, and Amilyn thinks he wants her to say yes.

“No.” She says, barely paying attention to her own voice when Bail almost sighs, his head dropping back to the dregs of his tea. He broadcasts the same pain he did the first time they ever met, when Amilyn literally bumped into him with Predis close behind. “What are you holding onto about her, Bail? What are you so grieving for?”

He snaps his head up, the ghost of tears flying away. “How can you know?” He whispers, voice breaking. “How are you so perceptive?” 

It’s a question Amilyn always answers with meditation, with originating from a planet so in tune with life. Yet now she can’t let him misdirect her; he is caged by grief and finally acknowledging it. “The first time we met, she was also there,” Amilyn can’t bring herself to say her name, doesn’t yet want to handle that power, “In between seconds, when you looked at her, it was with imaginable pain. You have the same pain now.”

Bail sighs, years of imprisonment leaking with his exhalation. He rubs his face and places down his teacup, pleasantries forgotten.

“Twenty years ago,” He begins, his stare fixed far past Amilyn’s eyes, “On the day the Empire rose, my friend Padmė Amidala gave birth. She was on Polis Massa, weak after being abused by her husband. She… she was the Queen of Naboo, a blazing Senator for democracy. Palpatine - the Emperor - targeted her, but not even for that, for her husband.” Amilyn sits in silence, letting his story envelop her. In her reverence, his words resonate within her, and she knows that this is the most powerful thing she has ever heard, and ever will hear. “Anakin, Anakin Skywalker. He could have been something great,  _ was _ something great, but Palpatine manipulated him, used his bloodline’s power against us all. So when Padmė went to save him, one last time, he choked her while he himself was on the verge of death, too fallen to the Dark Side to see reason. When she got to safety on Polis Massa, her broken heart let her live long enough to deliver her children, name them, and entrust them to me.”

A single tear shines on Bail’s cheek, glistening with every colour in the sinking sun. Amilyn’s heart breaks for him. “We - myself and two other Jedi - decided the boy was to leave with one of them, hidden among Anakin’s family on a planet he hates. I took the little girl, bundled her in my arms, and whispered the name Padmė gave her. Breha was in an accident when she was younger, tumbled down Appenza Peak, so pregnancy could kill her. We always wanted a little girl.” Not even a bird chirps, the entire planet silent for its beloved Viceroy. His voice breaks, rising and falling until he can carry on with his distant tone. “We buried Padmė, disguised her as still pregnant for the safety of the twins, and I took Leia home. We never got there, little Leia never saw her nursery. A ship interrupted us, mangled and twisted but somehow still running, and Darth Vader boarded. It was the first time any of us ever saw him, and we had no idea who this apparent Sith Lord was. When he demanded we handed over the girl, that she was strongly Force-sensitive and needed to be with him, I was horrified. I pleaded with him, said she was an orphan of war that needed the stable home Alderaan could give but no matter what I said, he was relentless. The Force was so strong in him he could’ve ripped our whole ship apart if he wanted to. So Leia flew straight out of my arms and into his. This was the height of the Jedi Purge - I thought he was going to kill her. Imagine my surprise when twelve years later, he presents her as his daughter.”

Amilyn is awed by the man in front of her, who has lived with his heart strings ripped apart for so long. Who has carried the weight of planets on his back and still leads a revolution. Instinctively she reaches out, her warm hands covering his, willing even the slightest comfort to reach him. “I’m sorry Bail.” They sit in silence for a while, allowing the flow of time to wander around them, cauterising old wounds.

“You said Anakin was a great Jedi,” Amilyn says, her voice sure even though her reasoning isn’t, “Do you think that Predis - Leia - could be too? That we could lure her back to the light?”

Bail’s pupils are pinpricks, focused on some other universe, some other time when things went right. “I don’t know,” he says finally, wistfully. “I’d like to think so, but I don’t know enough of the Force or Jedi ways to be sure. She is our greatest threat now, that I know.”

Amilyn has more to ask, more paths to consider, but leaves them to rest for Bail’s sake. She allows a fleeting thought for Leia’s brother and the Jedi with him, hoping they are at least still alive, but no more. If Anakin can sense his baby’s power when he was dying half a galaxy away, then Predis sensing her brother through Amilyn is a possibility. With the threads entangling them sharpening, fear begins to unsettle her, slithering into her skin. She doesn’t allow it any deeper, however, for more importantly she is built on empathy, and Bail needs it more than either of them need impossible scenarios and worst-case endings. They sit together for a while more, tea cooling and tears falling.

As the sun finally sinks below the horizon, the last tendrils of light clinging to the brilliant good of Aldera, Amilyn rises. She signal for Bail to rise as well, rousing him out of his grief before it becomes wallowing, and embraces him. Despite the dying day they are warm in each other’s arms; Bail squeezes her tightly as he would the daughter he almost had. Inside they dine together, Amilyn, Bail, and Breha, sombre but peaceful in Amilyn’s last hour on Alderaan. Their goodbyes aren't a drawn out affair, but Amilyn manages to catch the pride beaming from Bail as he embraces her one last time. As he turns, heading back into the depths of the palace, Breha surprises Amilyn by hugging her too. 

“You know Bail sees you as a daughter,” she whispers, her furtive words kept close between them, “I do, too.”

“I’m honoured.” Amilyn breathes out, too full of wonder to compose her words with strength, too full of amenity to need to. She pauses, and then, “He told me about Leia - I’m so sorry.”

Unlike her husband, Breha smiles at this. It’s undeniably part of an attempt to restrain the tears in her glistening eyes that Amilyn watches, yet it is not weighed down by such immense remorse either. “Thank you, darling. For your words and your presence.” 

They bestow one final kiss upon the others’ cheek, and unclasp their hands. With Breha safely inside the palace, curled up with Bail on a loveseat, Amilyn slips back to her ship under the cover of darkness. She rejoins Operations HQ hours later, her mind rested and her body prepared for anything, while Alderaan‘s royal family sleep peacefully in Aldera, all three blissfully unaware that they’ll never see each other again.

* * *

Amilyn’s first assignment with her covert coordinates task force is a relatively simple infiltration and retrieval mission on Arkanis, an Outer Rim territory rife with Imperial agents and infrastructure. Independent of the coordinates office (only General Vernan anonymously sends them case details), they devise a plan for a short term cover. Just two days before Amilyn’s planned escape of the drizzling planet, she sits in a bar with the chief of the planet’s flight academy, both extracting information from him and distracting him while her teammates establish long-term rebel technology in his home and offices.

“... unconfirmed reports of Core World Alderaan going dark…” An old screen in the back of the bar plays Holonet news, and over the buzz of its patrons the reporter’s voice hooks a thread of Amilyn’s attention. She half listens, her focus on the man before her and the character she is supposed to be. Yet she doesn’t need to get by on scraps of news, for a hush settles over the bar; even the most rowdy drunks stop to listen. “Our reporter in the Alderaan system can confirm that the planet of Alderaan has been destroyed.”

Amilyn is silent as she watches the news; she can’t even hear her heart beat. Her quiet observation of the news, naive mouth dropping in shock, does not break character - she has a mission to finish. This kind of horror is not something she could imagine, could not begin to plan, but she continues as she was, leaving the vague awareness that this is not a hoax deep in her chest where the rest of her thoughts are. Bail and Breha are not dead for her to lay waste to Rebel Intelligence. 

“Who cares, they were just some rich Core World anyway.” Some Mandalorian snorts from the back, reigniting the hum of conversation and almost brawls. Amilyn turns back to her tipsy Imperial chief, fire within her as she strips him bare of all they could use, leaving him unconscious and none the wiser when she passes along her data.

The next two days are spent tying up the loose ends of the mission, leaving positions for a new rebel cell to fill as they begin to recruit. Some officers already on the edge scatter after the destruction of Alderaan, yet Amilyn easily tracks them down while she transitions out of her cover and back to Comet. She can’t return to Amilyn Holdo until after her debriefing at Operations HQ, which comes with haste as she hurtles through hyperspace. Luckily she does not have to wait for General Vernan to to meet her: a rarity for his tight schedule.

“Sir,” Amilyn adds to the end of her debrief as Vernan turns to leave. His falter before he looks at her is the most tentative she has ever seen him. “Is it true, about Alderaan?”

Even he cannot stay stoic. “Yes,” He replies, tone lowered in respect, “The Empire completed their death station and wanted to make an example of rebels. I’m sorry, I know you were close to Bail.” 

Amilyn dismisses herself with a nod, striding out of her office and back to her team’s covert complex, more numb than the steel walls enclosing her. It isn’t until she is crumpled on her refresher floor that the tears come, thick and fast as she sobs for the Organas, and the tragedies that have always clinged to them. Just for this night she allows her heart to disassemble, chambers opening up to the lives of Alderaan lost through space - the only way she can ever experience time with Bail again. The simple idea of never speaking to him again, never hearing his advice or surprising him again, fuels her wails that her returning teammates can hear muffled through the wall. 

Eventually she tires herself out. Eyes stinging and head pounding, it takes every ounce of effort for Amilyn to raise her starship bones, as though if they sink into the floor her grief will ease. It doesn’t, not when she slips into bed or closes her eyes, in fact in the darkness all she can see is her memories of them. Of her visit to Alderaan, not even a month prior. She recalls her first grief, experienced side-by-side with Bail, him and a younger version of herself not yet tainted with tragedy. Amilyn knows she was right then, that as long as the Empire doesn’t destroy their ability to love they will win, but she is so incredibly tired. Her skyrocketing career cares naught for grief. Slipping away into sleep, she wonders how her younger self could reconcile this weariness into action so easily. 

* * *

The next day, Amilyn rises, finally shedding the battered outfit of her last mission. Her meditation session focuses on the life left in the galaxy, taming her rage at the injustice of the Empire. She knows Bail is not truly gone, his energy one with the Force now, and both of them would be disappointed if she yielded to the waves of anger rushing red over her. Much calmer, Amilyn settles for a pace around her apartment, needing to move lest the inescapable grief grind her into the floor.

A knock on her door interrupts her, and for a fleeting moment she wishes them away, because as much as she believes that life is the reason to keep going, she cannot bear to talk to another so soon, not when the subject of Alderaan is inevitable. Perhaps next week, she thinks as she strides to the door, or her next forced leave when she isn’t stripped raw. If she makes it that far, depending on how dangerous her next assignment it.

“Hey Comet,” it’s Masodori, freshly returned from the mission if his instability is anything to judge by, “This needs to get to Mon Mothma as soon as possible, but she’s on the other side of the ship and I am dead on my feet… do you mind taking it to her? If you’re not doing anything?”

For one blissful moment while he was talking, the weight on Amilyn’s shoulders doesn’t feel so devastating. Then she remembers Masodori’s sense of duty, and how far it goes beyond tiredness, and begins to suspect that he has a different motive for her. “Sure.” She says, tone even as she takes the small covered package he holds, “She’s at the main dock?” 

“Yes. Thank you, so much.” He grins at her, wider than he ever has before, and Amilyn realises he’s trying to cheer her up, or at least distract her. Her squadmates don’t anything about her previous career besides it was something political, nor do they know how she joined the Alliance, but they do know she was crying the previous night - someone must have told Masodori to look out for her.

“I’ll change, then go right away.” She informs, dismissing Masodori. With the door shut, she heads to her wardrobe, and pulls out the basic Rebel Intelligence uniform she uses to blend in a crew of thousands with, her squad still only known to General Vernan. Her heart is heavy as she stores away her favoured lavender dress she put on only an hour ago, but her freshly-dyed magenta hair reassures her slightly. It’s not a replacement for a planet, but it’s a start.

With Operations HQ cruising at over a standard kilometre in length, Amilyn is grateful for Masodori’s offer. She can’t skyfare anymore, unless she finds a public room on Gatalena, thus this exercise outside of the training rooms is rejuvenating. Yet this package is apparently important, so she doesn’t dawdle in her stride, and before long she is quietly asking a rebel dockworker where Mon Mothma has gone. He points her towards a meeting room above the hangar, commonly used for quick meetings, where Amilyn spies Mon Mothma sat alone, bodyguards flanking the door. She knocks, and slides open the door upon Mon Mothma’s instruction.

“I have a package for you.” Amilyn announces as she steps through the doorway, the door sliding shut automatically. 

Mothma’s greeting smile is automatic as she turns to Amilyn, yet it falters when she regards Amilyn properly. Amilyn recognises her mostly from fleeting interactions with her on Coruscant, when she would accompany Bail for Apprentice Legislature experience. She gazes at Amilyn a few seconds longer, puzzle pieces slotting together in her eyes, before her smile rejuvenates, having placed Amilyn. “I see, thank you.” Amilyn strides forward to place the delicate package on the table between them, yet as she turns to leave, Mothma speaks again: “I have a few minutes before my meeting - do you want a caf with me?”

For all her opposition to conservation, Amilyn finds herself unable to say no - if anyone can understand her right now, it’s someone else who lost a dear friend. “Sure.” Amilyn answers, although she can’t raise a smile as easily as Mothma appears to be able to. 

Mothma doesn’t surprise Amilyn when she pulls out a flask from underneath her robes; even off-duty Amilyn’s eyes are sharp. “This is my secret weapon.” She half-jokes, pouring them each a cup of steaming caf. 

Amilyn twitches her cheek in appreciation of the joke, but her voice is still even as she looks into the black mixture, a rippling version of herself staring back, “I hope you don’t mean that literally.”

Mothma chuckles into her drink. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t ruin good caf with poison.”

Amilyn sips on the caf, its bitterness shocking her insides. “This is one hell of an insomniac - is that how you do all your work?”

Mothma actually laughs then, her breath slipping from her guard. It’s not a sight Amilyn has ever experienced before, and she feels her own lips turn up in amusement. “No, no - I don’t need this to stay awake.” Mothma replies, her cup near her lips. “You know, Bail -”

Amilyn doesn’t get to hear what Bail said or did, a commotion from outside clanging with the chimes of grief inside her chest. They rush outside, Mothma immediately flanked by her bodyguards, watching with rushing breaths as a Corellian freighter crashes into the hanger below. Rebel crewmembers surround it as Amilyn, Mothma, and her bodyguards sprint downstairs to the command desk, where they hear the transmissions to and from the unexpected arrivals.

“... got a kid and an old man on board, from Tatooine. We ran into you by accident…”There’s some muffled arguing, then a new voice takes the stage.

“This is Obi-Wan Kenobi speaking. Your ship is not compromised; we got knocked off our original course and came out of hyperspace here. I need to speak to whoever is in charge as soon as possible.”

“Good heavens.” Amilyn hears a stunned Mothma mutter beside her. She strides to console, crew parting for her and handing her the transmitter. To the hangar, she projects, “Everyone, stand down. Comply with usual protocol when a rebel ship docks - as you were.”

Instantly the Rebel crew scatter, although curiosity turns their heads after a few steps away from the freighter. Mothma brings the transmitter up to her mouth again, and speaks into it, to the ship only: “Obi-Wan this is Mon Mothma. All of you are cleared to depart. Meet me at the console opposite you.”

Sure enough, as the original pilot said, a boy and an old man depart, as well a scruffy man Amilyn assumes is the pilot and a towering Wookie. She watches them as they approach, forgetting duty, forgetting grief, even, as her natural curiosity for life reigns.

The pilot is grumbling to his Wookie friend about payment, but Amilyn tunes them out when she sees the reverence in Mon Mothma’s eyes. The Chancellor is awed, at the old man or the situation Amilyn can’t tell, but she knows this reunion is a magical moment. She feels only privilege as she watches Mothma grasp Kenobi’s arm, the pair laughing in disbelief. 

“I came as soon as I felt a great disturbance in the Force,” Kenobi explains, and the magic twists as Amilyn realises he means the death of Alderaan. “I didn’t know where you were stationed - there aren’t any rumours in the sand seas of Tatooine. We were going to use switch at Pamarthe - the Force would have ensured I chose the correct route, but we saw Vadar and I became paranoid. We jumped and… landed here.” 

Despite Mothma’s growing composure, her presence is still bright as she turns to lead Kenobi and his party away from the public hangar. “Come, we’ll find you somewhere more private to explain it all. We can compensate your pilot somehow.”

Their movement jolts Amilyn back to life; remembering her place in the Rebellion, she quickly makes her excuses. “Thank you for the caf, Chancellor, I’ll leave you to it.” 

“Of course. I will see you another time.” Mothma dismisses her, tactfully avoiding using her name. As they pass, Kenobi’s attention shifts to Amilyn, and she can finally observe him properly. He is not as old as his sun-white hair and beard suggests, in fact the wrinkles upon his face don’t place him as much older than Mothma, if at all. Amilyn wonders what act he was playing on Tatooine, and more importantly, what he was hiding. 

“Wait,” he halts in front of her, pausing the whole convoy. “Mon, I didn’t know you were using Force-sensitives in your army.”

Mothma’s eyes flick between Kenobi and Amilyn, her face stricken. It takes Amilyn a half second, her neurons insulated by shock and bereavement, but she realises Kenobi is referencing  _ her. _

“We aren’t.” Mothma replies. “There’s no one left to train them, let alone recognise them.”

“Yes, I can sense now that she has had no formal training.” Her gazes at her, opening his mouth like he is going to ask something else, but falters, eventually settling on, “Perhaps that is for the best. It is difficult to sense latent power; keeping it that way is wise.”

“Indeed.” Mothma appraises Amilyn one last time, her face indiscernible, before sweeping Kenobi back to their path into the Rebellion. “The chief here can give us a discreet meeting room…” The rest of their little convoy follow, the pilot and Wookie giving her no attention. The boy however, likely Amilyn’s age but still holding baby fat, beams at her, wonderment permeating every part of him. Amilyn smiles back, the first genuine smile she feels in days. His image follows her back to her quarters, from his blonde mop to sandy outfit, and she thinks she knows now what Kenobi was hiding. This boy, whoever he is, sends Amilyn’s cells vibrating with energy. With the Empire’s Death Star in operation and Alderaan gone, this new hope might be exactly what they need.

* * *

Amilyn’s last day of her mandatory leave ends with a literal bang: parties sweep through the rebellion as news arrives that outstanding new pilot Luke Skywalker executes the shot that destroys the Death Star over Yavin IV. She almost wishes for more time before her next mission (diagnosing the infiltration of Imperial Intelligence in their Corellian cells), but she would be disgusted with herself if she lingers too long on Skywalker, and her curiosity of what light Darth Predis’ bloodline can create. After two months in deep cover as a fresh operations agent, she and her team gather enough evidence to expose the agents, passing it along to counter intelligence agents who remove them for questioning. Returning to HQ would be more difficult, Amilyn thinks as she docks her sqaud’s freighter in their private hangar, if she didn’t have the wealth of information in her head she reopens to distract her. Focusing her own investigations on Skywalker, she narrows his possible locations down to only two planets in a matter of three days. It isn’t down to any possible Force ability; it is down to the fact that all she needs to do is dress up as a rebel pilot and slip into their social circles like a seasoned politician - they love to boast and brawl with one another. To piece together their rumours into a semblance of reality is child’s play to an experienced Intelligence Agent like her. 

Amilyn’s meditation the night before she sets off to meet Skywalker and Kenobi is a longer affair than usual, for she finally allows herself to unpick Kenobi’s claim of her Force-sensitivity. Such a power may be why she feels like home when she mediates or skyfares, and why there are some choices that she has much more conviction about than those around her do - Masodori often jokes that they follow a comet’s tail when they subscribe to her reaches in logic - she has yet to steer them wrong. Such a power may be why Predis likes - or liked, since Amilyn hasn’t seen her in months, though it feels like more - to toy with her so. Yet Predis is still an enigma Amilyn hasn’t fully unpieced, and Amilyn doesn’t believe Predis thinks anyone can reach her power. Maybe Predis is accurate in her assumption, being the only entity in living memory to be raised on the Force’s power since birth as far as Amilyn knows, however, Amilyn believes Predis’ attitude to be as simple as Dark Side arrogance. Despite all this, despite all the horrors Amilyn knows Predis commits, she feels most alive when she thinks of their interactions, of the electricity between them. She feels most dead afterwards, when she thinks of how Bail lost his daughter.

Still, Amilyn’s sleep is uninterrupted, and she is swift in her departure to find the Rebellion hero and his master. From the files she can access and the pilots of the squadron Skywalker served with, Amilyn knows that the two have fled the Empire to remote Outer Rim systems to train. If the more egregious rumours are true, Skywalker is becoming the next generation of Jedi. As Amilyn pilots her A-Wing through the lush forests of Dantooine, she casts her mind back to her brief encounter with Kenobi, and finds herself believing the rumours to be true. With the Force swirling around them, as part of them, nothing is ever really gone, Jedi included, even if most of the galaxy don’t believe in them.

Amilyn expertly weaves her ship over the old rebel base, landing it near the hottest heat signatures her scanners identify. Lumbering trees shadow her on either side, but no plant turns away from her as she crests a hill behind the base. Standing tall, she simply watches Luke dance through combat poses, his sapphire blue lightsaber shimmering like the sky that he is named for. Kenobi stands by him, gleaming eyes attentive to his training while vines creep along their feet. Now she is here, she realises she still doesn’t know what she is going to say to Kenobi, or why she is so compelled to speak to him. But he knew Bail, before the Empire, before she was even born, and is a wealth of information on anything to do with the Force, so Amilyn knows that out of the whole galaxy, if there is someone she wants to speak to freely, the sensible choice is him. 

Luke stops suddenly, his toe reaching her shadow. Raising his head to watch her, lean face jutting upwards for a few moments, Amilyn notices he is losing the baby fat he had when he first arrived: he is more of a man than a boy now. Kenobi lowers his head towards Luke, saying something Amilyn can’t hear, but likely dismissing him as Luke retracts his lightsaber and retreats into the base. Now is when Amilyn approaches, something unnameable stirring in her bones as she descends.

“It’s you.” He remarks simply, voice gruff at the interruption. “I hope you haven’t come here for training.”

Internally, Amilyn almost laughs. She has no business abandoning her Intelligence post, where she is of great use to the Rebellion, and thus the galaxy at large, even if she doesn’t see it, to run away to remote planets. She respects what Kenobi and Skywalker are doing, and their incredible patience, but her goal is easily in sight now. With each of her assignments, the Empire gets a little weaker. “No, not at all.” She is toneless as she speaks. “I wanted to know why now. A trip mine activated when the army has passed.” 

Her words are just as surprising to her as they are to Kenobi. She doesn’t blame him for Alderaan’s destruction or Bail’s death, assigns that only to the Empire, but her astute mind is always ruminating, and if Predis can be this powerful by now, then why can’t Luke be, too?

Kenobi stoops, exertion and guilt dragging him down. “We wanted him to be safe, to live a normal life. I didn’t know the state of the galaxy was this bad until I felt Alderaan’s destruction.”

Amilyn can’t fathom a life without the oppressive Empire bearing down, their threats getting closer and closer until Lady Predis is at the door, but she can fathom the want for anything else. “I can understand that.” She answers softly, settling herself next to him on the grass. “You didn’t know about Darth Predis?”

Kenobi sighs, regrets pulling at his face. “I’d heard some rumours when she first appeared. In the Outer Rim the idea of Darth Vader having a daughter was salacious gossip. I think that’s what made me want to keep Luke safe forever.”

Realities crash inside Amilyn. “No one’s safe forever,” She says, thinking of Bail and his formal grey robes, of Kier and his adamant whispers that Alderaan can be used as a haven planet, “That’s why we’re fighting now, so they can be.”

“He wanted to join the Rebellion anyway, after he saw what they did to Alderaan. I caught him at Mos Eisley disowning the Empire for everyone in a fifty kilometre radius to hear.” Despite their grave situation, Amilyn spies a fondness in Kenobi’s eyes as he reminisces, similar to how Bail used to look at her. Her heart twists again. By now it must be so full of knots it’s a wonder her blood pumps anymore. “And then you hired the pilot and his Wookie friend and found us?”

“Yes, I wanted us to be anonymous. The rest is… destiny.” He punctuates with a wave of his hand, calluses spread to the sky. Sitting down, the weariness of the past weighing down his bones, he turns to her, appraises with the wisdom of decades past, and asks, “What about you? How do you know so much about us when we don’t even know your name?”

Amilyn so badly wants to tell him, to know herself and be known as Amilyn Holdo again, but this habit of secrecy is old and solid; while she no longer works in Coruscant under real name, she cannot disseminate the sense that somehow, Lady Predis or some other Imperial wolf will seize her in their claws if she links her real identity to the rebellion. That tie died with Bail. Instead, she answers, “You can call me Comet.”

“Ah,” Kenobi’s eyes twinkle, although Amilyn infers sympathy rather than joy as she sits beside him on the dewy grass. “That was an Intelligence ship I landed on, wasn’t it?”

She nods, and ploughs on. “I knew Bail. Truly knew Bail, not just had the odd meeting with him. The last time I ever saw him, he told me about the rise of the Empire,” Amilyn clasps her fingertips together but does not cease her recounting of Bail’s words, “He told me about how Padmė Amidala gave birth to twins, and died, entrusting them to him and the two Jedi present. He told me one of them took the boy to his father’s family on a planet his father hated, hidden from the Empire. And he told me that he took the girl, Leia, because he and Breha could protect her, and had been longing for a little girl for years.”

Kenobi is more rigid than the stone behind him. “I see.”

“He also told me that he was interrupted on the way home. That Darth Vader showed up, and forced Bail to give up his daughter. And then, twelve years later, a young Lady Predis shadows him everywhere.”

Her recounting complete, Amilyn tucks her legs up, knees under her hands. Without Bail’s presence, her mouth almost revolted at having to repeat his words, but with the story in the air again, she feels its chains slide away.

“I thought Anakin had died, with all his injuries. I told Bail it was likely. It wasn’t until I heard of Darth Vader that I knew him to be alive - with the Jedi purge and Palpatine hunting every Force-sensitive being in the galaxy there wasn’t enough time or labour to train a Sith lord so quickly. Anakin had been groomed so easily beforehand - it had to be him. Predis however… well I just hoped it was mere rumour. Anakin couldn’t have been strong enough to sense a child from across the galaxy, or so I thought.” Kenobi scratches his beard, shaving away skin and truths.

“If Bail and Breha had a daughter, she would have been so extraordinary that even you would have heard about her on Tatooine.” Amilyn says, her eyes misty with the fog of time and space and possibilities.

Kenobi chuckles, a hollow sound that doesn’t even reach the front of the forest around them. “I think you’re right there.”

They sit in silence for a moment, catharsis spreading throughout Amilyn as her memories of Bail and Breha jumbling, fading in and out of those with Predis. And then, “Do you think Predis can turn to the Light?” The very air that carries her question vibrates with promise.

“Anything is possible,” Kenobi starts, and Amilyn’s hopes rise with her ribcage, “But in short, no.” Amilyn’s shoulders come crashing down, her one kernel of hope for that future dashed. “I have learnt from my time in Tatooine, and now I regularly discuss with Alliance High Command. I knew Anakin the best out of all of us, and maybe he can turn back, but she has been raised on the Dark Side since birth. If Palpatine has trained her, as one of the greatest Sith Lords in history, then she is his successor. Our reports say she is more than bloodthirsty, she is a Death Star in herself.”

It shouldn’t be a shock to Amilyn, but it shouldn’t be a lot of things it is - disappointment included. “So,” She begins, the galaxy weighing on her words, “She is our greatest threat?”

“Greater than Palpatine. Harder to kill, too.” 

Amilyn doesn’t respond. She remains sitting, threading her fingers through the Dantooine grass, reassuring herself of its life. Now all avenues of knowledge surrounding Predis are illuminated, she knows what she has to do the next time she sees her.

“I think I was wrong about you.” Kenobi says, his words disturbing birds pecking around them. They fly away, feathers falling with each flap of their wings. 

“It’s not unknown.” Amilyn answers, pensivity between her teeth.

“About undergoing Jedi training, I mean.”

Amilyn can’t deny it’s the sentence of dreams, of young Amilyn’s dreams who played at adventuring with Jedi in her overactive imagination. But Gatalenta’s Jedi archives are incomplete, and she grew up in a regime where ‘the Force’ was a myth, and a dangerous one at that. She waves him off. “Not now. Maybe in a better time when everyone is free to explore their gifts, but now we are still assembling that key. I can’t leave it.”

Kenobi’s robes flap in the breeze. “If you’re sure. Because I think that Master Yoda is still alive, and he’d like you.” 

She laughs unbidden, Kenobi’s blunt words piercing her guard. “No, but thank you, Master Kenobi. For everything.” Amilyn rises, pulling him up with her.

“Thank  _ you _ , Comet, for this. You’ve forced me into a few realisations today, and you were there for Bail and Breha. I suspect you were a great joy to them both.” 

For the first time since Alderaan’s death, she can think of its royal family without the mass of the whole planet crushing her bones. Instead it sits miniaturised in her pocket, while her affection for them outshines it all. “I have responsibilities to attend to, as do you. Goodbye, Master Kenobi, and may the Force be with you.”

“We will meet again, wherever and whenever that may be. May the Force with you until then.” 

* * *

The next two years sees the Rebellion slowly gaining ground against the Empire, with Amilyn’s squad chipping away at it, making cracks they don’t recognise until it is too late. In the latter year Luke shines as the Rebellion’s mascot Jedi, and while they don’t actually meet her, Amilyn’s squad is occasionally tasked with ensuring Darth Predis does not interfere with Luke’s missions. Amilyn imagines she must be going wild at the idea of an opposing Force-user, a possible rival for her. Luke is still learning, still far from the rank of Jedi Knight, thus the last thing Amilyn - and she suspects, Kenobi - wants is a confrontation between the twins. He would be slaughtered without mercy. 

No more Death Stars are operational either, thanks in no small part to local Rebel Intelligence cells and their calls for experienced Coordinate agents - Amilyn’s proudest moment is when she successfully manipulates the Grand Vizier into spilling his secrets about an entire sector’s operating lines intended to create a new death star; she reads between the lines and exposes his weaknesses, and even the Intentions department can’t infer much more from her recording of him than she what already has.

She spends her forced leaves diving into what culture there is left in the galaxy, funding herself from the pockets of Imperial Officers. A simple ‘accidental’ bump into them gifts her their credit chip, and a few minutes of tinkering leaves it untraceable. Amilyn wants to spend her time on Gatalenta for the first time in her life, or with Harp Allor and other old friends, appreciating her homeworld more now she never has time to see it. Yet she does not let herself visit often, not now she has seen the retribution Bail accidentally brought his home. She knows she has thwarted one Death Star plan, but there are always more out there because the Empire is not crippled yet. The immense loss of life at a single push of a button is a situation she never wants to experience again. Amilyn has never known fear like it, never let it restrict her before. She doesn’t now, she tells herself, she still loves and lives. Still travels under aliases; a new one for each world. The fact that no-one knows her is irrelevant.

Comet can kill without hesitation now, to Amilyn’s resigned dismay. It’s a necessity of war, but war is not forever, and Amilyn forces herself to remember this after every mission. They are only two and a half years post the Battle of Yavin, and three and a half since she officially joined the Rebellion, but each mission may as well be a decade, even the short ones. Her squadmates come and go, some retire, like Masodori (who takes the post as their case officer), and some they lose, including General Vernan. At seventeen missions in - and only twenty-two years of age - Amilyn is the youngest to achieve this record. She knows she is going to have to retire soon, for her own safety.

Her eighteenth assignment is on a stormy Pamarthe, assessing their intelligence network there. Its foster agent has reported a remarkable increase in stranded agents, and initial scouts suggest at least half of its agents are sleeper agents for the Empire. As the most experienced member of her elite squad - she is the only original member left after all - the others expect her to lead, however Amilyn doesn’t make it this far with arrogance. She ensures the counter-intelligence specialist is the main architect of their framework plan, the rest left to the defining aspect of the group: their flexibility.

Amilyn slips into a seedy bar on Pamarthe’s largest island, oceans crashing around her while the planet’s rope bridges sway precariously. She is playing scout for her squadmates, their first line of defence while they probe both Imperial and rebel offices they shouldn’t be in, trying to find the links between the traitors and their mysterious handler. There are few Imperial officers actually on this island, but it is Pamarthe’s gateway to the galaxy, and they can never be too careful. 

Slouching on an unwashed barstool, Amilyn drapes herself over the bar, casually sipping on what appears to be Corellian whiskey. In reality it’s a far less potent substitute, yet it allows Amliyn to blend in with the shadows and drunks of this depressing establishment. Despite its moodiness, this bar is the favourite haunt of Imperial officers, with its close proximity to a spaceport and its serving of heady drinks. Only two officers are in the bar, sitting in a booth Amilyn can easily see from her perch, the rest either offworld or on other islands, where their return will send a signal to the rebel squad.

“Lady Predis arriving…” Rumours float over the bar, but this one ignites Amilyn’s attention. Through her haze of faked intoxication, she strains to listen to the bartender’s conversation with a patron, who is dressed in the Pamarthe spaceport worker's uniform. “Unscheduled of course, we only were informed a few minutes in advance. It was the end of my shift so I got the hell out of there…” His voice is overtaken by the rabble of the bar, dissipating into one strand of many. 

Amilyn’s focus is on her fingers underneath the bar; hidden by her cloak, she surreptitiously sends a message to her team: “Predis arriving. I’ll distract her. Bar and spaceport are noxious. Rendezvous at HQ, don’t wait for me.” Satisfied with her warning, she cloaks her tiny comm unit and slides it into a pocket stitched into the inside of her sleeve, safe in the crook of her elbow. Downing the last of her drink, she stumbles from her stool, mind sharp as she sways towards the exit.

Outside, the sea air slams into Amilyn, salt tinging her throat while her hair is whipped around her face. Despite the night, the ocean doesn’t sleep, its roar echoing throughout the streets. Slouching against a grimy wall, Amilyn angles herself towards the spaceport, where anyone arriving from it would have to glance at just the right angle to spot her. Somehow, she knows Predis will catch that specific inclination. 

The rumbles of the waves and numerous ships mask any signs of Predis’ arrival, yet Amilyn can sense Predis’ first step onto the landing dock. The very soil around her recoils, shuddering at such dark energy. And suddenly Predis is there, metres away from Amilyn, standing atop the spaceport’s steps like its queen. The distance between them shrinks to nothing when Predis spots Amilyn, her pitch-black veil stilling as it faces her. Undeniable want floods her, the gates of years past destroyed. Amilyn licks her lips.

Amilyn would fear Predis' tangible wicked force if she wasn’t one of the Rebel Alliance’s top spies. She can do anything, and acting a fallen angel in a back lane bar is one of them, especially when it is not entirely untrue. Duty cast aside, Predis is there in a flash; with the discarded stormtroopers and upturned lips, Amilyn knows this is the closest she will be to her as Leia. Yet her menacing smirk and bared teeth do not mask the disfigurement creeping down from under her veil, skin contorting and rouging as the Dark Side claims her face. But Amilyn banishes all thoughts from her mind, instead giving in to knotting ties between them.

“Ms Amilyn Holdo,” Predis begins with a voice of silk, “Fancy meeting you here.”

Amilyn raises herself from the wall, limbs languid as she faces Predis. “I could say the same thing,” She replies, her tongue sweeping over her lips as leisurely as the rest of her, “I didn’t know you do business here now.”

Thunder claps overhead, reverberating in the thick air between them. “You seem very…  _ relaxed _ .” Predis ignores Amilyn’s almost question, her voice pitching lower than Amilyn has ever heard it before. Amilyn refuses to consider that she is in danger, focusing on every twitch of Predis’s body instead.

“Being away from Coruscant for so long is very liberating,” Amilyn drops her gaze from Predis’ veil to her lips, finally setting her internal blaze free. Her fingertips flutter with unrestrained energy. “I can do whatever I desire, now.”

Predis steps closer, only half an inch between them now. The seconds stretch, and Amilyn delves into them, sweltering. “And what do you desire, Ms Holdo?” It is almost a whisper, yet is louder than any thunder of the ocean.

Even now Amilyn denies Predis this game; if they are to toy with one another, Amilyn will not concede the power she has built. Her lips open like honey drips from them, saccharine speech artificial and slow. “I think you know, what I…” Amilyn stands tall now, head lowered as she towers over Predis, “...desire.”

Predis grins.

The pair rush through the streets, short breaths coming in gasps. Amilyn trusts her body to turn the correct corners, her brain locked up in carnal want. She even trusts Leia to lead her to private rooms, willingly stepping into whatever trap this may be. Inside the roar of the storm is muffled, their own explosions scorching the room. Amilyn heeds it no attention, finally conceding to their electricity as she sheds her own and Leia’s clothes. For all her previous intoxication with Predis she is alive now, sparking and blazing with each touch of Leia’s pale body. Their outerwear almost rips as they fling it across the room, Predis’ lightsabers clanging against a metallic wall. It is but a chime in their crescendo, their hunger devouring it. From under the veil, Amilyn solicits moans as she rakes her nails up Leia’s legs, her own almost molten with fervour. She can’t see them but she knows Leia’s eyes are rolling back in pleasure when she dives in. 

As Amilyn works this writhing creature, her own underwear slick with sweat and lust, a hidden spark inside her raw passion manifests. In this bed lies the greatest threat to their freedom, and unconsciously Amilyn allows the thought back into her mind, Leia too lost in the throes of orgasm to realise. They are instinctive, Amilyn’s actions: as one hand curls inside Leia the other flexes outwards, drawing a nearby lightsaber to her and splitting Leia in two. Lady Predis dies with a leisurely smirk between two breaths, the next generation of the Empire, struck from history.

Amilyn pants atop Leia, the world silent. She simply sits there, upon those still-warm legs, waiting for oxygen to flood her system and neutralise her blood. She hasn’t planned this, never expected to get this far with Predis, or Leia, or the Force, in any way. It has always been a possibility in the back of her mind, killing her, but she never expected it to be this intimate. An aftermath is something she has never considered.

Eventually the hum of the crimson lightsaber drags Amilyn out of her body; now that she can feel the coolness of the metal hilt she is repulsed, and drops it immediately as her hand spasms open. It falls, landing on its previous owner, its plasma blade a perfect fit for the crevice in her body. Amilyn slips from the bed and picks up her clothes, trembling only slightly as she pulls them on. The usual clarity of her mind is gone, replaced, for the first time in years, possibly ever, by uncertainty. She has performed the kill Alliance High Command have been scrambling for for a year, she has finally catalysed the reaction between her and Leia that has been building since the moment they met, and now she stands alone in an unfamiliar room, a dead body at her feet. 

Instinct resuscitates her brain a few seconds later, and Amilyn remembers her mission. She has more than distracted Predis, and now she is here in the most significant Imperial room on the planet, she has an opportunity she may never have again. She strips the room of anything useful, transmitting all encrypted data from Predis’ private channels onto her datapad. Not all of it is encrypted, however, and as it downloads Amilyn spies personal messages to Predis, almost entirely from her father and the Emperor. They warn more than congratulate, apparently reprimanding her for excessive pride. It is of no surprise to Amilyn, knowing that Predis saw her as little more than a toy from the beginning. Just before her datapad alerts her to the finished download, Vader’s last message catches Amilyn’s attention: he mentions a rebel cell on Pamarthe. The entire reason Predis is here, Amilyn realises, is to not only meet Imperial agents as their handler, but to eliminate every rebel on Pamarthe. Instead she seized pleasure, believing the rebels to be so meek they could never escape her grasp. Irony sits on Amilyn’s tongue, settling in beside the taste of Leia.

Turning back to the body, Amilyn begins to assess her options. Wherever she goes, she needs to bring Leia’s body with her, to avoid both discovery and the Empire covering up her death, but she can’t drag her body around either - she isn’t versed enough in the Force to carry it easily. Instead, Amilyn scans all of Predis’ outgoing messages, and composes one from her datapad to the stormtroopers around Predis’ private apartment under the guise of Lady Predis.

While she waits for the Empire’s minions to heed her request - Predis’ Advanced TIE fighter outside the door, as soon as possible - Amilyn pulls out a travelling bag and spare robes from Predis’ mostly empty wardrobe. The robes are likely too short for her, but Amilyn pulls them over her anyway, their hem fluttering around her shins. With her height, no one familiar with Predis would mistake the two, but all Amilyn needs is a simple disguise to cross a garden already shrouded by night, and the stormtroopers are either too brainwashed or too petrified to question Predis. 

There are no spare veils, however. Amilyn clips the two fallen lightsabers to her belt, shuffles over to Leia’s body. The robes bundled up across her torso keep her together, but her limp legs threaten to fall apart as one teeters dangerously close to the edge of the bed. Carefully, Amilyn reaches one long hand out to inch up the veil, her curiosity about Leia and Predis slowly creeping up her arms. Under the veil she is incredibly tiny, made even more so by the twisted skin bunched around her once-angular features. The extent of the disfigurement steals Amilyn’s breath; she wonders how the Empire can deny the galaxy such beauty. She wonders when the last time someone saw this face was.

Glassy eyes stare at Amilyn as she arranges the veil over herself. No cover identity has felt as loathsome as this does; as it settles around her shoulders Amilyn takes a few deep breaths to exorcise the darkness that attempts to permeate her. This is temporary, she knows, enough to get her into hyperspace and out of this purgatory. Banishing any dark thoughts, Amilyn focuses on actions only as she wraps Leia’s body up in her bloodied bed sheets and deposits her in the travelling bag, grateful for Leia’s relative lack of size.

A knock on the outside door directs her flow. “Your ship has been directed from the spaceport to a small dock on the coast Ma’am. Sorry it took so long, the storm is ferocious.”

Amiyn adopts what she hopes is the usual Predis tone of scorn. “Go. Ensure I am left alone.” 

“Yes Ma’am, right away.” The stormtrooper replies, hurrying away as quickly as he came. Amilyn lowers the veil, hoists the sinful bag on her back, and exits Predis’ extravagant Pamarthe abode.

Outside, the storm is raging on. Through the wind and lashing rain Amilyn realises the disguise may not be necessary: everyone is sheltering from the weather and the announced arrival of Lady Predis. She stands on the edge of the island’s streets, grateful for every physical workout that allows her to carry Predis’ body without her muscles protesting. Below Amilyn, at the risk of being washed away into the ocean, sits Predis’s perverse TIE ship, its bent arms tied down to an ailing dock. Amilyn rushes towards it, her only goal to get to safety before her ruse is discovered.

Any threat is blown away by the wind, and with her cargo and herself safely strapped in, Amilyn jumps the ship into action. Navigating the storm isn’t even a challenge as Amilyn slips back into her rebel self, completely calm as she flips switches and pushes buttons until the unfamiliar ship is out of the atmosphere. An hour ago she was in bed with one of the most feared creatures in the galaxy - a simple storm is lifeless in comparison.

Still, Amilyn doesn’t contact Alliance Intelligence until she is in hyperspace light years away, never letting caution go for a second. Even on Operations HQ she isn’t entirely safe, their intelligence offices being based on a ship for easy evasion of the Empire. True safety while this war wages is a myth, and, as she glances at the bag beside her, undesirable, Amilyn thinks. Leia thought she was safe in the hands of the Empire, and she ended her life as an arrogant Sith who never made it past twenty two years.

Hurtling out of hyperspace, Amilyn halts the Empire ship she stole on the opposing side of the system to Operations HQ, keeping her distance as to not alarm them.

“Case Officer Masodori this is Agent Comet, access code 179443, requesting permission to land.” She broadcasts on her comm unit. It’s designed to be short range, but she tinkered with it while she journeyed back from Pamarthe, unwilling to allow direct access from Predis’ ship to their capital ship.

“Agent Comet, please confirm what ship you are in.” The tiny speaker crackles to life, its accompanying screen lighting up with it. 

“I can confirm that I am in an Advanced TIE Fighter, usually associated with Darth Predis. I am not under duress, nor do I believe I have been followed.” Amilyn replies, aware that Masodori can see the Empire’s stain in their system. With none of their codewords signifying coercion voiced, Masodori grants her access, albeit with mild admiration. “Tell General Creckin that I need to see him as soon as possible.” 

Amilyn pilots her stolen ship into the hangar, maneuvering it smoothly despite its unfamiliarity. She misses her A-Wing, abandoned in a private hangar somewhere in Pamarthe, until the squadmate she piloted with her returns in it. She speaks to no one, not even herself, simply strips her Predis robes and guards the steps to the ships until Masodori and General Creckin - the chief of Alliance Intelligence appointed after Vernan’s death - burst into the private hangar, drawn by the mystery of Comet arriving without her squad and with a Sith Lady’s ship.

“Agent Comet,” Creckin puffs out, “I assume you have an explanation?”

“Yes,” Amilyn replies, while she internally assures herself about her explanation, “Come with me.”

She leads Creckin into the ship, both of them stooping to get in. “I was scouting for the rest of the crew, while they gathered the last pieces of evidence on the Pamarthe cell. I wouldn’t just leave them for anything,” she begins, her voice serious. “Predis arrived. I had to be a distraction.” Then she unzips the bag slightly, just enough to display Predis’ dead halves, and raises her twin lightsabers. Creckin’s jaw drops to the floor.

“I think we’re going to need to debrief with High Command.”

* * *

An hour later Amilyn is presented on the flagship Home One in the fastest process she has ever experienced politicians execute. They gather in a semi-circle, some in holographic form like Kenobi, unable to be physically present. Amilyn helms their gathering, presented by General Creckin, who steps to the side as she stands tall alone. Knowing her superiors are impatient, and grumpy at being taken away from their tasks, Amilyn doesn’t bother with words. Instead she deposits her bag on the floor, heart apologetic to Leia as she unzips it. When she steps aside to present Predis’ dead body and twin lightsabers, not a single breath can be heard. 

Amilyn leads the initial conversation, explaining why she was on Pamarthe how she was so familiar with Predis in the first place. These twenty people don’t need to know the details of their history, she decides as she glosses over Predis’ previous attempts at flirtation, but does explain Predis has shown interest in her before, and that’s what she used as Predis’ downfall. Kenobi in particular is attentive to that part of the story, how she summoned the Force unconsciously when she has never knowingly done so before, and all Amilyn can think of is that two decades of meditation and opening up to the galaxy has positioned her extremely close to it, and that Predis was so consumed in herself and her darkness that she could never consider anyone else a threat. As Chancellor Mothma commands more questions, he relinquishes the subject with a promise of return. 

As the last of the leaders assign their opinions, lungs refilled after their shock, High Command officially decides that to go back into the field would be too much of a risk for Amilyn. She doesn’t feel even a shred of disappointment at this, just some loss trickling through her like a leak from a pipe, for she doesn’t know who she is now, or what she’s doing. Her life has always been about helping others in one way or another, until it merged with this intelligence career and she no longer saw past the goal of overthrowing the Empire. With Predis dead and the Empire in its descent (but still too far from collapse), the shadow that has shaped Amilyn from her most formative moments is gone. The light exposing it now is the unknown, and Amilyn doesn’t know where to dive in.

With the debriefing over, High Command has little use of her presence. Amilyn and Cricken travel back to Operations HQ, entirely silent save for the hum of their ship’s hyperdrive and the thoughts of the galaxy that bounce around Amilyn’s head. They arrive at Operations HQ during its night cycle, with only a skeleton crew operating the ship. The rest of Amilyn’s crew are arriving soon, yet Amilyn uncharacteristically dismisses their reports, wondering if tomorrow this dubious air that follows her will have dissipated, and she feels human enough to resemble normality again.

As Amilyn relinquishes control of herself atop her bed, collapsing as a bag of bones above the covers, her HoloNet console beeps incessantly at her. The thought of doing anything besides closing her eyes and falling asleep is too exhausting to her already depleted soul, so she ignores it until it finally switches itself on, the breaking news programmed to play whenever she is in the room. Lashes cemented together with tears and fatigue, conflicting reports reverberate around the room. Eyewitness reports place both Predis and Vader on Pamarthe, official Imperial reports say Lady Predis is on business in the Outer Rim, destroying terrorists as they speak, while Rebel propaganda is gaining ground. Whether they believe it or not, the whole galaxy knows that Predis is dead. Amilyn can’t help but wonder what Bail would think.

“Agent Holdo.” A voice booms around the room, mechanised like its owner ripped it from a human and twisted it into their use, “I would be congratulating you on your achievement, if it wasn’t my daughter you killed.” Amilyn’s heart lurches, any semblance of calm expulsed as her eyes shoot open. She jolts her view around the room, yet nothing is any different to usual, save for the announcements of Predis’ death quietly playing on her HoloNet console. “I have an offer for you.”

Now awake, Amilyn realises the voice is projecting from within her. Wherever he truly is, Darth Vader is using the Force to contact her directly. Repulsion exudes from every cell as she sends wave after wave at him to expel him, true fear shallowing her breaths and seizing her chest. At her effort he simply laughs, raising nausea in Amilyn’s stomach. “You join me, and improve on what you took from the Empire, or we take our retribution. Choose carefully.”

And with that he is gone, leaving Amilyn alone, shaking in her bed. She has hope for the future freedom of the galaxy, but now a frost settles on her skin as she realises that she may not live to see it.

* * *

Amilyn drifts around Operations HQ, half-chasing her epiphany on the rest of her days, half-waiting for High Command to figure out what to do. She finds herself in a corner somewhere, in a storeroom of half-empty crates she would think have been abandoned if she didn’t know how much the Alliance needs every single supply. Settling down behind one, back straight against its rigid structure, she lights her meagre supply of Gatalentan spice. Its heady smell swims around her, reuniting her with what she so loves about the galaxy. A vision of Bail shimmers in front of her, mirroring her position against a crate.

“I’m sorry I killed your daughter Bail,” She starts, setting honesty free. “I’m sorry you never got to raise her as you should.”

Bail simply wears that sad smile on his face, pride shining in his eyes. When he doesn’t answer, Amilyn continues, words tumbling from her lips with no restrain now, “I want to thank you for all the opportunities you gave me. I don’t think I did that after I surpassed both our expectations. I don’t know what I’m going to do with them now, I’m probably not going to be a twenty-three-er.” She pauses, then adds, “That’s when a coordinates officer successfully completes twenty missions, with the twenty-three percent chance for survival.”

Her explanations like Bail is really in front of her begins to untangle the knots of her heart. “I’m too recognisable now that Vader has identified me. Maybe I’ll undergo extensive facial surgery, truly get away from Gatalentan culture then.” She jokes, but her laugh has no humour. “Maybe I will take a case officer job and properly integrate into the rest of the ship. Work up until I take Creckin’s job and become the politician I thought I was going to be. Wherever I am, Kenobi wants a Jedi with me, training me. He doesn’t know about Vader contacting me through the Force yet, but when he does he’s going to want me training like Luke is.” She takes another deep inhale of her spice, allowing it and the mirage of Bail’s presence to keep her calm. “And I want to be able to repel Vader, to get him out of my mind. As much as I am not a future Jedi, I think I’m going to have to accept Kenobi’s training. I wanted to leave that to Luke, to watch him rebirth the Jedi into something better, into something Palpatine can’t twist.” She almost whispers her next sentence, voice cracking, “Whatever I do Bail, I don’t want to be alone.” The truth fractures Amilyn, loneliness and sorrow weeping from the crevices of her. “That’s why you picked me for this job, isn’t it? You knew I could live with being lonely.”

For the first time in three years, Amilyn gazes upon Bail Organa, and through the shine of spice and longing she sees an apology written across his face. Her chest aches. “It’s okay, truly. I can, I could. Just not forever. But don’t fear, the Rebellion has plenty of battles yet, and I will stand in every one I can.” She vows, watching this shining symbol of hope smile again. It’s enough to raise a genuine smile, her spice-tinted blood raising her own hopes. “Thank you for letting me talk freely, Bail. It’s about time that I’m wholly honest with myself, without half-hiding behind excuses or metaphors. Thank you for everything.” 

Bail’s mirage flutters in and out of this wavelength of light, the smoke of Amilyn’s spice heavy as it burns out. Without waiting for him to disappear, Amilyn Holdo stands, her identity knitting itself back together as her bones slot into their sockets and her stars align overhead. She scoops up her spice burner and heads back to her room, teetering on the precipice of readiness for her future in the galaxy.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! (And sorry that it's not split into chapters, I wrote this with the idea of a singular chapter in mind and it became twice the length it was supposed to be. Oops.)


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